In recent days, people have started to read a lot about Elon Musk and X, the social network that used to be called Twitter and that the entrepreneur bought at the end of 2022. There is a lot of talk about it because of Musk’s increasingly active involvement in international politics, between Imane Khelif, the revolt fomented in the United Kingdom after the events in Southport and the increasingly open support for Donald Trump.

A series of circumstances that have pushed more and more users to abandon the social network, as has already happened at other times in the past. Many have moved to Threads, the text platform created by Meta as a response to Musk’s X. Some have already spoken of a Xodus (exodus from X to Threads) but at the moment there do not seem to be precise data to support it. Even if Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram, has highlighted a growth of about 25 million active users between July and August of this year.

Well, aside from personal opinions, I think there are a couple of important issues with respect to the way Elon Musk is managing an important platform for global public debate such as what was once called Twitter. These are two issues that we can try to address starting from two anecdotes.

X has become the social network of the national right

February 2023. Meeting at Twitter headquarters (it wasn’t called X yet, at the time). Elon Musk asks his employees for explanations: why have the views and engagement of his posts dropped so much in recent weeks? An engineer hypothesizes an explanation, bringing some data to support it. It’s likely, he says, that it’s just a drop in attention, a moment of tiredness after a moment of great media attention due precisely to the purchase of Twitter.

According to news reports, what happens next reads like an excerpt from a lazily written TV show. “You’re fired,” Musk says. He then asks his fellow engineers to make sure his posts maintain a significant view count.

This is the first key to understanding Elon Musk’s X. It is his social network and Tesla’s number one, and Space X is its leader, deus ex machina and main influencer. And today, what was once an aspiring Tony Stark is a point of reference for the international right. And so he amplifies and carries forward all the conversations and points of view of that world, which thus becomes the center of the entire experience of X users.

Which, like all social networks with an algorithmic feed, actually has a sort of editorial line. If I, as a user, no longer see only the posts of the people I follow but those of anyone, there is room to manage the conversation. And the experience of many, in recent weeks, has been similar: thanks also to Musk’s comments, the reality of the social network has seemed particularly oriented around the points of view of a specific political party. It is an evident issue, not hidden, claimed. As demonstrated by the explicit support and the recent interview with Donald Trump, broadcast live on X.

It is almost fascinating, because it reveals something often hidden but made evident by Musk’s protagonism: social networks are private companies, with precise objectives and interests. It had never been so clear.

Elon Musk Doesn’t Play by the Rules

The second anecdote is recent. August 12, 2024. Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, sends a letter to Elon Musk. He asks him, in view of the interview with Donald Trump, to work to “stop the amplification of potentially dangerous content” also available in the European Union. An initiative, according to the Financial Times, not shared with the Commission, which had already sanctioned X last July, for the paid blue tick, considered misleading for users.

Here, Breton writes and publishes the letter right on X. Musk takes the post, shares it and adds a meme, which essentially invites the Commissioner to go to hell.

To be honest, I really wanted to respond with this Tropic Thunder meme, but I would NEVER do something so rude & irresponsible! https://t.co/jL0GDW5QUx pic.twitter.com/XhUxCSGFNP

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2024

This is the other characteristic of Elon Musk’s X: that of not playing by any rules. Not the European ones, already violated more than once. Nor those of social networks, with the dismissal of almost 80% of those employees who supported the technological infrastructure of the platform. Which, for one thing, did not withstand the impact of the many connections for the interview with Donald Trump. Although Musk blamed a hacker attack, internal sources interviewed by the American press speak more of a simple technical problem.

A platform that has also almost completely stopped guaranteeing the safety of its users, especially those who do not speak English. According to data released for the DSA in April of this year, X would have only one Italian moderator, who would be entrusted with the task of supporting artificial intelligence in the control and verification of all posts published in our language.