Elon Musk suggests charging governments and corporations a 'slight cost' to use Twitter

Source: The Verge

Elon Musk suggests charging governments and corporations a ‘slight cost’ to use Twitter

Musk: ‘Twitter will always be free for casual users’

By James Vincent May 4, 2022, 6:28am EDT

Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter hasn’t been finalized yet, but the world’s richest man is keeping busy by kicking around ideas for potential changes to the platform. His latest suggestion? Charging corporations and governments to tweet.

“Ultimately, the downfall of the Freemasons was giving away their stonecutting services for nothing,” tweeted Musk. “Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users.”

As is often the case with Musk, there’s no commitment to this plan: the guy’s just tweetin’. But it does fit in with what we’ve previously heard about Musk’s ideas for the platform. Reuters reported last month that, when pitching banks on his acquisition, Musk suggested he might charge media companies to quote or embed tweets. In each case the logic is simple: Twitter is currently free, people want the product, so why not charge for it?

Link to tweet

Well, because these ideas seem obvious but come with a lot of potential problems. In the case of charging to either a) quote or b) embed tweets, a) would be counter to the first amendment (not a great look if you’re promoting free speech) while b) would introduce all sorts of administrative headaches (tricky if Musk wants to reduce Twitter’s headcount). Mike Masnick of TechDirt has a great piece explaining these issues here.

By comparison, making governments and corporations pay to tweet is more straightforward but still tricky to implement. ...

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Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/4/23056524/elon-musk-twitter-business-plans-charging-governments-corporations