The worlds richest man,Elon Musk, seems set topurchasethesocial mediaplatformTwitterfor around US$44 billion.
Twitter might seem an odd place to make a stand for free speech.
But the platform plays a disproportionately large role in society.
It is an essential infrastructure for journalists and academics.
Twitters unique role is a result of the way it combines personal media use with public debate and discussion.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
Does it make sense to think of Twitter as a town square?
And if so, do we want the town square to be controlled by libertarian billionaires?
What is a town square for?
Is it a town square?
Such moves are just the beginning of states imposing both limits and positive duties on platform companies.
What are the alternatives?
Designing and attracting users to viable alternatives at a global scale is really hard.
Of course, it is still possible Musk will discover running Twitter is much harder than it looks.
Twitter has already been looking at ways out of this situation.
Of course, either way, this model would ultimately require taxpayer support and serious, long-term investment.
