A New Twitter Is a Threat to Meta, Not to Democracy

Progressives and their media allies have been fretting loudly that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter might enable more free speech online. They shouldn’t be afraid, at least not if their ideas can compete legitimately with those of traditional liberals, conservatives and libertarians. Who should be afraid of a Musk-led Twitter, however, is Meta — a company that Musk says gives him “the willies.” A Musk-led Twitter ultimately could attract more users and move into the metaverse more seamlessly than Meta — putting the Mark Zuckerberg-led social media giant under greater competitive pressure than ever before.

Twitter has problems, but these must look like opportunities to Musk. The site ranks 15th among social media outlets globally in terms of number of users, and its messaging is dominated by left-leaning elites: Just 10 percent of Twitter users produce 92 percent of all tweets by U.S. adults, and 69 percent of these highly prolific users align with Democrats.

Its issues don’t stop there — Twitter also has a user trust problem. In 2020, users ranked its ability to protect their privacy 7th among all social media sites. But Meta’s trust problem is worse: Users ranked its Facebook product two places below Twitter.

Read Dr. Jamison’s complete Op-Ed at The Hill.