A match made in hell

If a month ago, someone had said that Elon Musk would buy Twitter, it would have been deemed impossible," says Raheel Khursheed, former head of news, politics and government at Twitter India and South Asia, and now co-founder of streaming tech platform Laminar Global. "But he has done it, and that too, in a record 21 days, even though we will know if the final deal will go through only by October or so."

It all began on April 4, when Twitter confirmed that billionaire entrepreneur, and CEO and Product Architect of Tesla, Elon Musk held a 9.2 per cent stake in the company, worth around $2.9 billion. On April 5, he was asked to join the board, which he rejected a few days later, tweeting, "Is Twitter dying?" On April 14, Musk offered to pay $54.20 per share to buy 100 per cent of Twitter in an all-cash deal. A week later, Musk said that he'd secured $46.5 per share in funding, after receiving finances from Morgan Stanley and other institutions backed by his Tesla's equity stake. On April 25, Musk and Twitter, both agreed to seal the deal with his original offer of $54.20 a share. The transaction, one of the biggest buyout offers of recent times, is valued at around $44 billion. Musk tweeted that he'd prioritise free speech on the site, open-source its algorithms, eliminate spam and add new features.

Raheel Khursheed and Prasanto Kumar Roy

But what could it mean for India, which has seen enough strife in the past few years over freedom of speech, privacy concerns and skirmishes between social media giants and the Government of India? In fact, in May 2021, the offices of Twitter India in New Delhi were raided to ascertain why tweets about a so-called "toolkit" on the Coronavirus were labelled as manipulated media by the platform. Khursheed says that nobody really knows what will happen. "In a way, Musk has bought himself a megaphone," he says of the billionaire, who is known to shoot his mouth off, and stir the hornet's nest just for laughs. "But India is not on Musk's map. His version of free speech is also in keeping with the American version, according to the First Amendment of the American Constitution," he says. The First Amendment guarantees freedom concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition. It forbids Congress from both promoting one religion over another, and also restricting an individual's religious practices. "But he is a businessman, and he has got the loans, as he plans and aims to turn Twitter into a viable and profitable entity. They will eventually decide if they are making more money than they are spending in India, and make changes accordingly. But as Musk will also realise soon that making changes to the core product is much more complicated than he thinks." Musk has hinted at adding the edit button, and also changing Twitter into a subscription model.

Ateesh Tankha, founder and CEO, Alsowise Content Solutions, which looks into financial tech, says that even when global numbers are looked at, Twitter holds the smallest market share. In India, it's only around 23 million, which is insignificant compared to Facebook, which has 239.65 million users, and WhatsApp that has 487 million users. "India is a small market for Twitter. But since Musk needs to drive profitability, and since this is unlikely to come from advertising, he may offer users globally the chance to buy privacy for a fee. This could pose a threat to Facebook and Google, firms that work hand-in-glove with government agencies, based on their scale and reach. Moreover, if privacy is protected by contract, it may even ensure that GoI is forced to follow due process before it gains access to protected private information. Thus, Musk may actually give power back to the people," feels Tankha , adding that the current version of Twitter has put the muzzle on many.

Ateesh Tankha, Varun Mayya and Madan Gowri

Cyber and tech policy expert, Prasanto Roy, says that Twitter will have to figure how they deal with India. "Twitter has tried to adapt to different markets, for survival. Back home in the US, it has taken a strong line on hate speech as well as free speech." It's not the same in India. "Here, they've been more accommodative. When they've tried to push back against a sweeping takedown demand [for example, delete all tweets with this hashtag] it's not gone well. Now, the new rules make it clear: Twitter officials are individually, criminally liable for ‘non compliance'. Buckling down to sweeping takedown demands does not sit well with Elon Musk's position on free speech. So I do expect to see conflict," he says, adding that all the social media majors view India as a very significant market, but a very difficult one to navigate. It's complex, varied, and unbelievably thin-skinned: just about anything can offend someone or the other. "So virtually, any tweet could result in a police complaint or takedown notice or even a summons to Jack [Dorsey] and now Elon, just as Bill Gates has been ‘summoned' by small regional courts on complaints before. This won't work so well with a ‘free speech absolutist' position."

Tech Influencer Madan Gowri, who had a fanboy moment when Musk replied to one of his tweets, believes that Musk is a man of his word, and will stay true to his views on free speech. "It's not healthy to only allow one kind of opinion, even if the opposite point of view is one you hate."

Varun Mayya, founder and CEO, Avalon Labs, a global technology and Blockchain company, says that we will have to wait and watch, as we can't predict all kinds of scenarios just as yet. "They will make changes slowly, so it will be a year before you even see any major changes as a user. Even at Avalon, we know how hard it is to change the core of the system." Maybe Musk thinks it's like looking under the hood of a car, and tinkering with it, we say. "Exactly, but unlike a car, in the code of a system, everything is handmade by different people, who may not be even working with the company anymore. How will you change that right away?"