Elon Musk continues to strengthen his political leanings, with the Twitter chief set to host a Twitter Spaces chat with Republican Governor Ron DeSantis this week, through which DeSantis will formally launch his 2024 US Presidential Marketing campaign.
Musk has already pledged his support for DeSantis, saying again in November that he views DeSantis as a ‘smart and centrist’ candidate. Musk has additionally more and more leaned in the direction of Republican viewpoints in his personal tweets, and his actions in managing Twitter, sharing varied information experiences and views along with his 140+ million followers.
Musk’s endorsement can be a key launch pad for DeSantis, with the influential billionaire holding main sway with many citizens. Musk additionally now controls one of many key platforms for information dissemination, and it’s doubtless that DeSantis will make Twitter a central focus of his marketing campaign in consequence, much like how former President Donald Trump leaned on Twitter for his bulletins and updates.
Regardless of having considerably fewer customers than different platforms (Twitter at the moment has 253 million daily users, versus 2 billion on Facebook), the real-time focus of the app implies that it’s nonetheless a key supply for information dissemination, with many journalists and different influential voices staying up to the mark on Twitter, then re-sharing that content material out to different platforms and publications. On this sense, Twitter’s affect is usually underrated. However newer modifications to the app may additionally have lowered this, as extra customers look to different choices, and person feeds get clogged with blue tick feedback.
Nearly all of the 660,000 Twitter Blue subscribers within the app are extra ideologically aligned with Elon Musk’s viewpoint, and with Twitter re-jigging its algorithm to prioritize replies from paying customers, Twitter is slowly changing into extra dominated by voices from one aspect of the political aisle. And whereas Musk himself claims to be a centrist voter, his stances too have more and more leaned proper, which has additionally guided the platform additional on this path.
Although Republican voters would say that this was a essential correction, as Twitter, beneath its earlier administration, had leaned too far to the left, and had angled its guidelines round left-leaning stances. Now, ideally, Twitter is extra open to broader political debate – although with the chief of the platform internet hosting a Republican marketing campaign launch, it looks like a reasonably clear indicator {that a} degree of bias stays, simply weighting to the opposite aspect as an alternative.
Regardless, the DeSantis chat will carry extra focus to Twitter, which is Musk’s primary intention, whereas it’ll additionally assist to maintain the app on the heart of the upcoming Presidential marketing campaign.
Political leanings apart, getting the platform extra concerned within the race can solely be good for Twitter utilization, and making certain that it stays an necessary platform for debate.
But on the similar time, having the person in cost so overtly help one candidate over the opposite additionally looks like a dangerous proposition, when it comes to platform bias and management.
Possibly Musk will steadiness this out with the same chat with a left-leaning candidate, perhaps new Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino will take a distinct perspective in her administration on the app. Both approach, proper now, Elon’s utilizing his $44 billion buy as an amplifier for his political leanings.
