Tuesday, April 26, 2022

but can Musk actually reform Twitter?

Saw this in the comments over at Instapundit:

I find myself wondering how this is supposed to work. Musk just bought a massive swamp. Now, either he has the intention of draining that swamp, or he doesn't. Musk has made some pro-free-speech noises lately, so maybe the safe assumption is that he does indeed plan to drain the swamp. Twitter, over the years, has gotten very swampy, so there's a lot of work ahead in Musk's future. Since I doubt a busy man like Musk, who is juggling several companies/corporations, will be doing the swamp-draining himself, I assume he's going to call on a gang of his henchmen to "get it done." Delegation of responsibility. 

So there's the basic scenario, laid out for us in a way that simpletons like me can understand. Even if I don't get the legal and business-related particulars, I can ask questions like:

  • What's to become of the entrenched Twitter staff who are part of the swamp?
  • What's to become, specifically, of Parag Agrawal, Twitter's current CEO?
  • How long might the swamp-draining take?
  • What are the metrics for knowing the swamp has officially been drained?
  • What guarantee is there that there are no Judases in the gang of henchmen?
  • The swamp is doubtless planning to fight back. What form will this fighting-back take?
  • What countermeasures will Musk's henchmen take as they battle the swamp-hydra?

I can think of plenty more questions, but those ought to be enough for the moment. My point is that I wonder whether Musk understands the beast he is hoping to tame. My greatest disappointment would be that he decides not to tame it at all, although, in the end, Twitter's fate doesn't really matter to me: I'm interested to the extent that the whole drama provides me with some Schadenfreude as I watch the swamp get emptied out.



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