Elon Musk has purchased Twitter for $44 billion dollars after pressure to accept his offer to buy the site for over $54 a share. Right away, the fatalistic tweets in the trending 'RIP Twitter' tag from this morning, are, in my humble opinion, more than a little premature.

The big blue bird app blew up this morning after news that celebrity billionaire Elon Musk was moving forward with his attempt at purchase of the social media site, now in serious talks with Twitter to buy the company and take it private.

He had already bought several shares, and although Twitter refused his initial bid to take over the company, it seems his increased offer changed their minds - because, as of this morning, it was announced they will accept the offer. Negotiations have been ongoing thoughout the day.

When the news hit Twitter, its users began to either mourn or panic - the tone is inconsistent - over these predicted upcoming changes.

Twitter Error

Those protesting are complaining because Musk has made it clear that one of his main gripes with the social networking site is with their censors - the things people can be banned or suspended for saying.

This assumption comes from Musk's promise to transform Twitter into a "platform for free speech around the globe" - something that, due to the misuse of the term "free speech" by politcial radicals as "the ability to say whatever I want without fact-checking or attempting to be polite," people are justifiably nervous about.

Many users seem to believe that the removal of those censors will only benefit politically alt-right fringe types - Trumpers, blatant homophobes or racists, conservative trolls, et cetera.

There is a serious risk that the removal of those censors will create a less safe or comfortable environment for some users, it's true. That said, however, speaking as someone who has been on Tumblr since 2012...it'll take more than a change of hands to fundamentally change this site.

Yahoo bought Tumblr in early 2013, not even a full year after I joined. The site was wildly popular at the time, close to what Twitter is to teens now - when Yahoo purchased it, it was worth $1.1 Billion. Users panicked when they began to make changes, and for a while, the site became markedly more annoying to use, but over time the changes slowed, and as they got more used to Tumblr's userbase and learned to respond to what they wanted, things got a little better. The site was still in decline, but it had its core userbase already.

Then, in 2017, Verizon bought Yahoo, and the Great Porn Ban of December 17 happened a year later. Before this aquisition, Tumblr had become a safe haven for sex workers and mature content, one that many liked because it wasn't part of the main-stream pornography industry that had a history of harming and objectifying its workers, especially the women. The site was more popular for home-grown content of varieties not often found on mainstream porn outlets, including accounts for queer and kink communities.

So when Verizon banned all pornography and nudity on the platform, its userbase dropped significantly - but even then, predictions of a barren and useless site did not pan out. And better yet, when Verizon realized their plans for the site didn't align with what the userbase wanted, they decided to sell it to the owners of Wordpress - they had to, because collectively, we all basically said, "No, we don't like this" together. A lot.

In fact, now, against all odds, many of us mid-twenties Tumblr Elders have been shocked to learn recently that the app is once again picking up favor with teens, and is experiencing a jump in activity.

  Social media is a kind of unique and weird sort of business. The decisions that whoever is in charge of a website makes don't always present a Direct Stop to behaviors they don't want to see from users - sometimes those users will just find clever ways to get around them, or they'll build their own.

In most businesses, the clientele can't rebel against you like this - which is why running a social media website is a little bit like being a politician. The people have a lot of the power.

Social media websites really work more like places than they do businesses. People choose to spend their time there, and while you could argue that they're getting entertainment value out of the app, what they're really doing is - duh - socializing. Not just socializing though - they're forming communities.

And that's what makes running a social media company different. You're running a business that is also a community, so your job is half CEO...and half Head of State.

The people of Twitter can't vote on what they do or don't want to happen - all they can do is emmigrate. Leave the site and go find a different community. But the thing is, because it's a community, people aren't going to be as quick to leave as this trend suggests. They have connections here, rooms where they go to talk about familiar things, a familiar environment on their homepage.

They don't WANT to leave - but, at the same time, they don't LITERALLY live there, so they will do so the moment it gets too uncomfortable to stay.

So, ironically, much as I am sure I would not agree with this man on literally any other topic (except maybe smooth or crunchy peanut butter, idk, something normal), I do agree with him here: You may WANT to leave Twitter if Elon Musk becomes the Guy In Charge, but you if live there - EG, have a community there - you probably won't.

The dance of being head of a social media company is making changes slowly and carefully enough that you don't anger your userbase SO MUCH that they leave. If Musk buys Twitter, he's not going to be dumb enough to change it all at once - he may be kooky, but he's still a businessman. He's going to do one or two big things to test everyone's reactions, then he'll make small, incremental changes in places where he sees room as he better gets a feel for the userbase.

If he makes changes too quickly, the users will get angry, the site will become less profitable, and he'll be forced to either put things back, sell the company, or find someone else to run things.

(And hey, if he does actually completely ruin the site in one fell swoop, come back to Tumblr or something. It's pretty similar, but the Staff actually sometimes listen to our suggetions over there, and they don't make your feed for you with an algorithm. Eventually, Twitter will become something usable again. We'll recolonize.)

Tags: Elon Musk