Billionaires go revenge shopping for apps
Billionaires are going on a social media app shopping spree. (Photo: Futurism)
“Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.” This is usually the cop-out of a person who’s accused of sharing a point of view that could be construed as tone-deaf or plain problematic.
When someone says or posts something online the public deems offensive, users are quick to take to the keyboard and type out a thesis proposal of why what they did was problematic and why we should cancel the poster—more so when the poster in question has more than 100 million followers on their social media account.
To make amends, your average person sometimes apologizes or deletes their insensitive content—if you can’t beat them, join them. But the billionaires of the world have a Plan B, where B stands for buy—because if you can’t beat them, buy them.
Add to cart: multi-million social media app
A few months ago, we talked about how Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was looking to bail on his $44 billion deal with Twitter, as he accused the blue bird company of lying about the number of spam accounts on the platform.
However, Musk seems to have changed his tune this October, as Twitter is making money moves that indicate that the buyout is back in business—like freezing Twitter staff's equity award accounts which allow staff to check the status of their stock compensation.
Now, it would be naive to assume that Musk’s bargain for the social media platform has nothing to do with how he communicates online. He has branded himself as a free speech warrior whose intent to buy Twitter is fueled by his desire to see democracy in online spaces. However, some may argue that Musk’s sentiments stem from being fed up with users coming after him for his Twitter takes, like that workplace unions are evil and that COVID-19 wasn’t a big deal.
Two months before the buyout became official, he even let users vote via Twitter poll on whether Twitter upheld the principle of a “functioning democracy.” To which he added, “The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.” TLDR; he asked Twitter users on Twitter if he should buy Twitter. Make it make sense.
It’s no surprise that Musk’s buyout has inspired another billionaire to follow suit, especially since Musk endorsed this man’s 2022 presidential bid—yep, Kanye West.
West recently reached an agreement to buy Parler, a notoriously “uncancelable free speech platform” considered to be a haven for conservatives, which welcomed former US President Donald Trump after being banned from Twitter. The app made its return to the Google Play Store last month after it was taken down by Google under suspicion of aiding in inciting the 2021 Capitol riots.
Birds of the same feather flock together, as they say. West, like his bestie Musk, is no stranger to posting content that is publicly deemed offensive. If you’ve been living under a rock, see what he’s been spewing about his antisemitic conspiracy theory and how quickly the tweet was taken down by Twitter.
Tech tolls and biases
Billionaires buying out media platforms and outlets is nothing new. You don’t have to look further than Mark Zuckerberg’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp to create Meta or Jeff Bezos’ purchase of The Washington Post.
Besides having the license to say whatever you want to say, why are some of the richest people in the world shelling out billions of dollars to own media platforms—specifically, those that operate online?
Authors Brian Friedberg, Emily Dreyfuss, and Joan Donovan trace the rise of global communications companies to this MO: using tech to gain recognition. Recent news has shown us how social media companies can influence politics and control how the public gathers information.
In their book, Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America, they wrote, “The information superhighway is full of tolls, from the purchasing of legitimate pathways through digital advertising to preferential fast passes by tech CEOs and dark money used to game algorithmic recommendations and search engine optimization. And because there are no regulations for the integrity of civic information online, the public is betrothed to the whims of CEOs’ moral codes.”
Tech will always lean into the bias of its creators and owners, that’s just how it works. There’s a reason why Zuckerberg’s Instagram has shifted from being a photo-sharing app for creatives to a TikTok-like e-commerce platform over the years. Even post-Zuck WhatsApp was reconfigured to allow the company to overlap Facebook data, WhatsApp data, and phone numbers—which was a crucial step toward monetizing WhatsApp through targeted ads. Former WhatsApp owners regret signing the deal to this day.
Meanwhile, Bezos' tech prowess has transformed it into the global digital platform it is today. In addition to developing a new content management system and licensing it, it capitalized on online engagement on platforms such as Reddit and TikTok.
While Musk has yet to seal the deal with Twitter, there are already talks of his adjustments to the platform. In addition to adding an edit button, he pretty much wants to give the whole app a makeover. He envisions a super app called X, modeled after China’s WeChat, which is often described as a Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Paypal rolled into one platform; he cites his Twitter purchase to accelerate this vision by three to five years.
Can we trust them?
While many of us use social media apps for leisure like talking with friends or watching cat videos, in reality, these apps can disseminate and contain critical information.
We’re not only banking our online freedom of speech or digital accessibility to the whims of social media platform owners. We’re also entrusting these billionaires with powerful digital tools which can potentially gather and access highly-sensitive information. On paper, ownership of critical tech can be privatized. But on the flip side, we’re subject to the egotistical plays of CEOs that often serve their agendas.
Can we really trust people who have skewed morals and cash to burn with global communication platforms?
As a social media user, if it’s a toss-up between a MuskeTwitter edit button or a Kanye-free platform, I think I’ll do just fine typing out my tweets correctly on the first try.
