After becoming Twitter’s largest shareholder, Elon Musk has officially settled a $44 billion deal to purchase the company. The business magnate has purchased the massively influential social media platform in hopes of promoting free speech. The deal was agreed upon on April 25 as Musk bought the company from its previous owner Jack Dorsey. 

This acquisition should not be passed up as another one of Musk’s stunts, which he pulls and therefore gains large amounts of the internet’s attention. Twitter, being one of the biggest sources of news for the average internet user, is also home to many opinions. Many of these opinions have been censored in the past leading to a more one sided consensus on certain issues that are talked about on the site. The purpose of Musk’s purchase of this company was to promote free speech by changing the site’s algorithm to censor less of the content produced by its users. Musk believes that Twitter’s heavy influence on most users’ news consumption. When such heavy censorship is being pushed on the site, many users are being led to believe only that which the platform is showing as opposed to other sides which are censored.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy,” said Musk. “And Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”

Musk plans to change the algorithm and the functionality of the platform. His plans include adding a feature where users can edit their tweets which could allow users to change typos while also being able to change the wording of their content for more clarity. In addition, Musk is planning to attempt to get rid of spam bots across the platform that respond to trending topics. Other changes include altering twitter’s subscription service that was introduced last year called Twitter blue. Musk plans to make this subscription cheaper and to remove advertisements for those with the subscription.

While being a step in the right direction for many features on Twitter, the userbase is afraid that the large amount of power being held by Musk could lead to too much influence from him on many issues on the platform.