According to a Monday securities filing, Elon Musk has disbanded Twitter‘s board of directors and named himself the organization’s “single director.”
Musk sacked a number of senior executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, shortly after completing his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on Thursday. There were nine directors on the board.
The change made by Musk is the most recent in a line of reforms he intends to carry out.
Musk said on Sunday that Twitter was thinking about changing its entire strategy for the blue verification badges that are displayed on user accounts to verify their identity.
“Whole verification process is being revamped right now,” Musk tweeted at the time.
Authenticated users will have 90 days to determine whether they want to pay a monthly $4.99 fee or risk losing their “verified” status under Musk’s planned scheme, technology newsletter Platformer said.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELOne of Musk’s more controversial proposals involves openly discussing firing up to 75% of Twitter’s staff owing to size and “its strong left-wing bias.”
Employees at Twitter have resisted several of Musk’s ideas, for their part. Employees issued an open letter denouncing Musk’s huge layoffs in response.
“A threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation,” the letter read. I think the employees who wrote the letter are reckless and undermined the users and customers of the platform.
Musk’s outspoken support for free speech and his efforts to address Twitter’s political censoring bias, which disproportionately targets conservative voices, have been at the center of his plans.
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk tweeted. Amen.
Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022
“Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hell-scape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” Musk remarked. To better manage viewpoint diversity, hate speech, permanent bans, and account reinstatements, Musk has suggested a new content moderation committee for Twitter.
The first few months of Musk’s presidency will be a careful process of righting the ship.
The way Twitter handles high-profile situations like Kanye West’s recent suspension and Donald Trump’s prospective comeback will be closely watched by many as a gauge of the platform’s new leadership. Even if he is invited back on Twitter, Trump indicated last week that he will only post to his social networking site Truth Social.
What Musk has been doing so far is a step in the right direction. Free speech is one of the ultimate tools for a democracy to remain honest. When you censor half the world because you don’t want to compete in the arena of ideas, it simply means that the weaker of society are the ones who get to call the shots for everyone.
