Musk Has Potential to Expand Republican Twitter Use - Horowitz

Musk Has Potential to Expand Republican Twitter Use - Horowitz

As Elon Musk increasingly realizes he cannot legally escape from substantially overpaying for the purchase of Twitter and begins to take fitful steps towards implementing his takeover, one potential area for the social media site to expand its revenues is to attract more Republican users.  This may be one of the reasons for Musk’s recent attacks on Democrats and progressives in rhetoric that is overheated even by his standards as well as his public flirtations with Republican politicians, such as Ron DeSantis.

Unlike Facebook users who generally reflect the partisan composition of the population, Twitter users tilt heavily Democratic and liberal; 32% of Democrats and Democratic-leaners use Twitter, while only 17% of Republicans and Republican-leaners do, Pew Research Center documented. Twitter lags far behind Facebook in total domestic users.  Only 23% of American adults use Twitter, as compared to the 69% of American adults--three times as many-- who use Facebook, according to Pew.
This divergence carries through to tweets; nearly twice as many Democratic and Democratic-leaners than Republican and Republican-leaners say they have tweeted about political or social issues in the 30 days before Pew’s most recent survey was completed.  Similarly, nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans say that “Twitter is very effective at raising public issue about politics or social issues (28% to 17%),” reported Pew.

Overall, 1-in-3 tweets viewed on the site are “political in nature.”   A relatively small number of “high-volume” political users who tend to be active in politics across the board produce a disproportionately large number of these tweets.  Nearly, 4-in-5 political tweets are generated by people, ages 50 and older.

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Tellingly, only about 1-in-3 of these “high-volume’ political tweeters view Twitters as an “effective way to get people to change their minds about political or social issues.” Along with the fact that people tend to self-select and mainly view political content upon which they agree, the 280-character limit for tweets does not exactly lend itself to making cogent arguments. If Musk is serious about “re-engineering the public square” experimenting on Twitter with how to solve both these problems would be a step in the right direction.

Going forward, Musk would be well-advised to strike a better balance in his public statements, so that he can attract more Republicans and conservatives to the site without risking losing Democratic and progressive users.  His comments when he held a Q and A session with Twitter employees several days ago may be an indication that he is starting to realize this hard reality. During the meeting, Musk backed away from his “absolutist stance on "freedom of speech" and related plans to dramatically curb the policing of Twitter, reported Vox. “He said that while people should have a right to freedom of speech, they don’t necessarily have “freedom of reach,” meaning that Twitter doesn’t have to amplify ideas like Holocaust denial on the platform.”

If what seems to be by far the most likely outcome turns out to be the case and, Elon Musk is saddled with the ownership of Twitter, my best guess is that he will turn out neither to be the savior Republicans and conservatives perceive him to be nor will he markedly further poison the public square as some Democrats and liberals fear. 
Twitter is in major need of reimagining and re-engineering.  I am not sure that Musk is up for this task, but I for one am willing to keep an open mind.  For the sake of our democracy, let’s hope he succeeds.