# Will Twitter’s new ownership alter the political landscape? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 25, 2022, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440 "2022-04-25T22:28:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/61 "2022-05-13T01:35:38Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Given all this (and I’m not sure how Musk feels about Trump personally), are we about to see any major shifts to the political landscape and outcomes because of the buyout? Politically, all I think you’re gonna see is that Trump may have a social media voice again, which he wasn’t able to afford to do, financially, when he attempted to do it himself. The loser. Oh, and didn’t I hear that Musk is having a fundraiser, shooting for 6 billion? To help him with the Twitter takeover? Who sends these mother fuckers their own hard earned money?? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/62 "2022-05-13T12:42:21Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > As for Twitter banning national leaders, whether of China, Russia, or the U.S., I’m a John Stuart Mill guy and think it a mistake. I don’t think they should ban national leaders because they are national leaders, but I also don’t think that national leaders should get special treatment. Kim Jong-un wants a twitter account, I say he gets one. If he wants to use it to stir up violence, he should be banned. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/63 "2022-05-13T13:42:59Z")
> **[Musk puts Twitter buy 'on hold,' casting doubt on $44B deal](https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-technology-social-media-64b8534f53aa0213fbfd2245bacd6109)** > > DETROIT (AP) — Tesla billionaire Elon Musk has put his plan to buy Twitter on what he called a temporary “hold,” raising fresh doubts about whether he'll proceed with the $44 billion acquisition. Oops ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/64 "2022-05-13T15:18:26Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Twitter’s value will not soon plummet. Oops… [https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/twitter-stock-plunges-as-elon-musk-says-44-billion-takeover-on-hold-but-still-committed/ar-AAXe6zI](https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/twitter-stock-plunges-as-elon-musk-says-44-billion-takeover-on-hold-but-still-committed/ar-AAXe6zI) _Twitter shares 9.5% lower in early Friday trading to change hands at $40.81 each._ Granted, it’s probably not in permanent decline, as I am sure Musky is just goosing Twitter stock so he can negotiate a better price for the company. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/65 "2022-05-13T15:33:36Z")
Let’s talk again in a year or five. How many Twits? 200m every day? They say most celebrities have long outsourced their real but may-offend-some musings to professional spinsters. They say celebrities have egos, dislike trolls and tire of omnipresent antipathy. You need not have much ego to dislike trolls nor regret more empathetic times. But if these prosper, expect fewer stars. The world population, if it does increase by three billion in eighty years, will find enough support for Twits anyway. People want to express themselves and will do so on any platform. Even if Musk was serious about buying it. Theory: Musk and Nate are closely related. Is Nate really Grimes? No. But people are talking. About other things. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/66 "2022-05-14T00:03:07Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > … I am sure Musky is just goosing Twitter stock so he can negotiate a better price for the company. There is the theory that Elon Musk is not actually an inventor/entrepreneur, but instead a market manipulator. He chose a flashy, attention-getting product (electric cars), made some of them, and then set to his _real_ work: maneuvering the press and social media into rising and falling waves of enthusiasm for whatever stock he wanted to goose up or down. This Twitter adventure does seem to lend a bit of credibility to that theory. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/67 "2022-05-14T03:00:54Z")
I wonder if this will change his mind. I would normally say this lawsuit doesn’t have a chance but these days and that it was allowed to continue…I dunno. > **[Texas has declared open season on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube with...](https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/13/tech/texas-hb20-social-media-law/index.html)** > > Texas residents can now sue Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for allegedly censoring their content after a federal appeals court sided Wednesday with the state's law restricting how social media sites can moderate their platforms. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/68 "2022-05-14T05:13:15Z")
The tech companies have appealed to have the stay of execution reinstated. The appeal goes to one of the SCOTUS justices, in this case that great defender of personal liberties, Samuel Alito. Dunno how he feels about the First Amendment, though. But if he doesn’t reinstate it, the tech companies do have a way to avoid the Texas law: stop doing business in Texas. Basically they’d have to close all the accounts of people and businesses from Texas. Yeah, that’d be a big hit to their business, but not as big as reducing the number of accounts to less than 50 million, which would be another option. At any rate, I wouldn’t expect it to last very long before the legislature repeals that law. I think it’d be safe to say that Texas needs FB more than FB needs Texas. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/69 "2022-05-14T05:21:54Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > …the tech companies do have a way to avoid the Texas law: stop doing business in Texas… Maybe not. From the CNN article we are referencing: > Buried in the law is a prohibition on discriminating against Texans based on their geographic location. By withdrawing from Texas, tech companies could expose themselves to allegations they have geographically discriminated against Texans in violation of HB 20. > > [SOURCE](https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/13/tech/texas-hb20-social-media-law/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/70 "2022-05-14T05:44:55Z")
So if they can’t just close all the Texas accounts, and they can’t moderate postings from Texas accounts, does that mean the legal liability shifts from the social media companies to the state of Texas? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/71 "2022-05-14T05:51:48Z")
States have sovereign immunity so that goes nowhere. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/72 "2022-05-14T07:48:43Z")
If they stop doing business in Texas, that provision would not apply to them. A state cannot force a company to do business in that state. And it has no jurisdiction over a company that doesn’t do business in that state. On thinking this over some more, they probably have assets, such as server farms, in Texas, so they’d have to shut those down too and probably sell them. Could be too difficult to do quickly enough. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/73 "2022-05-15T04:16:17Z")
My favorite Law Twitter guy raises an excellent point - under Texas’ law, the Buffalo grocery store killer could sue 4Chan for taking down his manifesto and sue Twitch for censoring his livestream of the murders. [https://mobile.twitter.com/Popehat/status/1525666889602543616](https://mobile.twitter.com/Popehat/status/1525666889602543616) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/74 "2022-05-15T04:51:54Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Could be too difficult to do quickly enough.⁢ Nothing says they have to do it quickly, though. They start pulling out the servers first. It’s not like Facebook needs those servers to work in Texas. It just would run slower. This would serve as both a warning shot, as well as preparation for shutting off content. Not that I expect it goes that far. Not only are there freedom of speech issues, but there are federal preemption concerns due to there being a specific federal law that already exists that would prevent liability to Facebook. There is a whole lot of political posturing going on right now. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/75 "2022-05-15T06:03:21Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > There is a whole lot of political posturing going on right now. There always is with these kinds of things. The idea of a company pulling out of Texas would be a nuclear option. It’s more something that’s threatened than actually done. In other words, posturing. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2022, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/76 "2022-05-17T14:42:42Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > It is possible to lose more wealth than you own. > > You are worth, on paper, say, $100 billion. You leverage that to borrow $50 billion to buy another company. Meanwhile, the assets you own decrease in value to $20 billion, and the company you bought is worth $10\*. Now you owe other people $20 billion. On the other hand, there’s the old truism, “If you owe the bank twenty thousand dollars and can’t pay, you have a problem. If you owe the bank twenty billion dollars and can’t pay, the bank has a problem.” ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2022, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/77 "2022-05-17T14:50:54Z")
Then there’s the other one, when you owe Saudi billionaires billions of dollars, you have a _big_ problem. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2022, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/78 "2022-07-08T21:36:02Z")
There is no new ownership: > ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2022, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/79 "2022-07-08T21:41:00Z")
Ok, so lawsuit to force him to honor his agreement incoming imminently then There’s a snowball’s chance in Texas he’ll get through this without something a bit more than a haircut ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2022, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440/80 "2022-07-08T21:47:15Z")
This is good news. Now I don’t have a Twitter account and only read stuff from there when someone includes a posting in an article, so I don’t really care much about the company. But this takeover attempt was bringing too much negative attention to Musk’s other endeavors (SpaceX and Tesla). People should be able to keep those separate, but not every one does so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-twitter-s-new-ownership-alter-the-political-landscape/963440.md?page=5)