Expert: Elon Musk to buy Twitter for $44B US

Elon Musk has sealed a deal to acquire Twitter for $44 billion US. The move comes after the richest man in the world started buying shares in the company in March, complaining that the social media network wasn't doing enough to ensure free speech. The company rebuffed his advances for weeks before the two sides struck a deal over the weekend that was made official on April 25. (CBC News) 

Here is an expert from McGill University that can provide comment on this issue: 

Sonja Solomun, PhD candidate, Department of Art History & Communications and Research Director, Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy 

"The fact that the public conversations around Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter have mostly revolved around free speech and content moderation is telling of how these issues are often amplified to distract from more structural changes needed to address many of the harms we see online. These include the very business model of online platforms. Musk seems to be leaning on content moderation as a silver-bullet solution, and he’ll likely quickly realize how complex this terrain really is." 

Sonja Solomun is a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History & Communications Studies and serves as the Research Director of the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at the Max Bell School of Public Policy. Her work focuses on the histories and politics of platforms, platform governance, and most recently, climate justice and artificial intelligence. 

sonja.solomun [at] mcgill.ca (English)