Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) has become a somewhat more controversial and unpredictable place since Elon Musk bought it for US$44bn, but the new chief executive faces “unavoidable limits” when making changes, according to a former senior staff member.
Yoel Roth, former head of the site’s trust and safety team, suggested that despite Musk’s repeated comments over free speech on the site, “much has stayed the same” in terms of its content moderation.
Musk is constrained by a need to protect advertising revenue and avoid financial penalties from regulators, explained Roth, while the biggest threat comes from a potential removal of Twitter from app stores.
Delving into his own experience at the social media company prior to departing last week, Roth suggested Musk is very much at the mercy of these external realities.
He said: “As long as 90% of the company’s revenue comes from ads, Twitter has little choice but to operate in a way that won’t imperil the revenue streams that keep the lights on.”
Roth explained that large companies pausing advertising payments to the site, including Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE), Volkswagen Group (XETRA:VOW) and now Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), had seen Musk empower his team to remove more hate speech and censor more content on Twitter.
This seems to be the opposite of what Musk has said and done publicly, including granting a “general amnesty” to those who were banned from Twitter but didn’t break any laws.
Previously Musk reinstated the accounts of Donald Trump and Kanye West onto the site, both of whom had been banned for comments they made.
While Musk may desire a Twitter with no regulation, a thought process backed by today’s decision to stop action against tweets which spread misinformation about Covid-19, this simply won’t happen according to Roth, who reiterated that the company is still bound by laws across the globe.
“Penalties for noncompliance with Europe’s Digital Services Act could total as much as 6 percent of the company’s annual revenue,” he said, providing just one example of why the embattled site will be weary of its legal requirements.
Twitter is already facing conflict with Apple Inc, which Musk has discussed himself – something that Roth outlined could spell bad news for the platform, as removal of the ability to download the app to mobile phones could see billions quit using the site.
Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022