If so, will Twitter be able to remain self-reliant?
In response to Elon Musk’s recent $43 billion offer to purchase all of Twitter’s shares, the business has implemented a poison pill defence.
Per Twitter’s press release, a unanimous board of directors vote approved the proposal, which is aimed to make it significantly more difficult to acquire more than 15% of the company’s shares.
The so-called “poison pill” clauses (also known as shareholder-rights plans) are meant to make it impossible for any one shareholder to acquire more than a certain proportion of a company’s shares.
By implementing the Rights Plan, Twitter hopes to ensure that all shareholders will be able to reap the benefits of their investments. It is hoped that the Rights Plan will reduce the likelihood that any entity, person, or group will gain control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without giving the Board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders.”
A trigger for the plan is when a shareholder seeks to purchase more than 15% of the outstanding stock of the firm without getting board permission. It would be possible for present owners to purchase more shares at a discount if such an effort is made; but, the company activating the plan would have the obligation to purchase any further shares over 15% at a higher price.
With the claimed purpose of taking the business private if his bid was approved, Musk offered $54.20 per share in his unsolicited acquisition offer to Tesla. It seems virtually probable that Musk, who has been a vocal critic of Twitter’s management, will take over the popular social media network.
Opinion: Buying Twitter from Elon Musk would be a total catastrophe.
Twitter’s “free speech” argument is now at a standstill, with both sides arguing that the corporation is censoring them. It’s important to note that Twitter is not a government agency. As long as the platform conforms with existing regulations, the corporation is entitled to create its own rules for users to agree to in order to utilise it.
If you breach Twitter’s terms of service, you may be banned from the site. There is no legislation that says you can’t be removed from the site for what you write. For the time being, that is how it is, and this seems to be bothering Musk who has slammed the firm for restricting its customers. Whether that is the way it should be is another story.
Considering Twitter’s (and the internet’s) sometimes poisonous interactions, removing all limits on what users may post would not lead to a thriving healthy, constructive conversation. There is no doubt about the conclusion of this experiment.
Musk and other early online pioneers like him feel that the internet should or might be a liberating, free-speech frontier if it were simply unchained from some Big Brother authority, whether it government or corporate. For some of its users, like parodies of The Joker, it has proven to be a brutal, digital colosseum where the most socially vulnerable users are fed to the lions for a cynical thrill but are really only interested in burning their perceived enemies at the stake from the safety and anonymity of the internet.
Although Twitter has a tumultuous history in this area, it is also one of the most sensitive to these issues. For someone like Musk, who enjoys the sycophantic admiration of his devotees, pretending that these obstacles can be surmounted by individual users via gumption or acquiring thicker skin is a cinch. Even if he’s one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, his wealth can shield him from the emotionally debilitating repercussions of internet abuse.
Musk, of course, wants to be free of the constraints that Twitter sets on its users. Rich individuals don’t want regulations dictating their every move, but Musk isn’t the only one who isn’t protected by them. With the present limits in place, the free-for-all of online social media mobs has already irrevocably hurt women, ethnic minorities, and other vulnerable individuals. They’re there to safeguard the rest of us.”
Town hall meetings can’t happen if someone in the audience yells obscenities, racially charged comments and threats at everyone else in the room. It would be the end of Twitter if Musk seized control of the service in order to avoid “censorship.”
As it is, it’s straddling the line between a heated public forum and a decrepit hellhole. When Musk frees the trolls, it will set off a chain reaction that causes the rest of us to flee to other platforms, which in turn amplifies the trolls’ voices and pushes even more people away from the platform. Twitter’s user base would be further eroded if its workers were to depart in droves, resulting in a decline in the site’s overall quality.
I can’t think of a better strategy for Musk to bring down Twitter if that is his objective.