tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/jack-dorsey-90119/articlesJack Dorsey – The Conversation2023-05-22T20:06:34Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2059952023-05-22T20:06:34Z2023-05-22T20:06:34ZWhat is Bluesky and how’s it different to Twitter?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527163/original/file-20230519-27-f9etwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C16%2C5447%2C3620&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Amid management changes at Twitter, discontented users are exploring an alternative social media platform called Bluesky. According to media <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/bluesky-app-downloads-surge-jack-dorsey-twitter/">reports</a>, downloads of the Bluesky app surged more than 600% in April.</p>
<p>Initially conceived by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in 2019 as a complementary project aimed to improve Twitter user experience, Bluesky transitioned into a standalone project in <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/04/28/jack-dorsey-bluesky-biggest-single-day-jump-new-users/">early 2022</a>, and its iOS app was released in February <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/16/it-has-high-ambitions-but-can-jack-dorseys-spinoff-bluesky-really-take-over-from-twitter">this year</a> followed by an Android version in <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/19/23690314/bluesky-decentralized-twitter-alternative-android">April</a>.</p>
<p>Visually, Bluesky looks similar to Twitter. The timeline is called the “skyline” and tweets are “skeets”. It has two main differences that drive its popularity – decentralisation and invite-only access. </p>
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<p>Decentralisation was a driving force behind Dorsey’s creation of Bluesky. So what does that mean and how’s this app different to Twitter?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-mastodon-the-twitter-alternative-people-are-flocking-to-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-194059">What is Mastodon, the 'Twitter alternative' people are flocking to? Here's everything you need to know</a>
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<h2>‘Decentralised’ social media</h2>
<p>Dorsey is a big proponent of decentralised control and cryptocurrency. He believes centralised platforms like Twitter cannot address issues such as enforcement of policies to address abuse and misinformation, and the proprietary algorithms are not meeting user needs. </p>
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<p>Twitter uses an AI-powered, centrally managed algorithm to moderate what content the user is exposed to. </p>
<p>On Bluesky, however, users have control over the algorithm that selects what they are exposed to. As Wired magazine <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/bluesky-twitter-social-media/">explained</a>:</p>
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<p>Crucially, users and servers will be able to label posts or specific users - e.g., with a tag like “racist” — and anyone can subscribe to that list of labels, blocking posts on that basis.</p>
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<p>Bluesky <a href="https://twitter.com/bluesky/status/1641845604807745536">calls</a> this concept a “composable, customizable marketplace of algorithms that lets you take control of how you spend your attention.”</p>
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<p>In addition to giving users more control over what kind of content they see, Bluesky has plans to “decentralise” control of social media even further. If all goes well, Bluesky itself will just be the first of many interconnected social networks running on the same basic principles.</p>
<p>Bluesky is based on what it calls the <a href="https://twitter.com/bluesky/status/1582437531278540800">AT protocol</a>, a network that allows servers to communicate with each other. This means that, hypothetically, you could <a href="https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/5-19-2023-user-faq">move your account</a> between different social networks that also use the AT protocol without losing your content and followers. </p>
<p>It’s worth noting this is all a bit theoretical for now; this functionality can’t be used yet.</p>
<p>But it is designed to eventually address the <a href="https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/5-19-2023-user-faq">concerns</a> of social media influencers who fear losing their audience due to platform rule changes or when choosing to move to a different platform. </p>
<h2>Invite-only</h2>
<p>Another distinguishing factor of Bluesky is that, for now anyway, it is invitation-only.</p>
<p>Most social media platforms, including Twitter, allow users to register freely. Bluesky, however, requires an invitation code. Existing users receive invitation codes fortnightly. </p>
<p>Despite at least 360,000 Bluesky app <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/bluesky-social-twitter-alternative/story?id=99039118">downloads</a>, it’s been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/16/it-has-high-ambitions-but-can-jack-dorseys-spinoff-bluesky-really-take-over-from-twitter">reported</a> there are only 70,000 users. Media reported earlier this month there were a staggering <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dorsey-bluesky-invite-social-exclusive-waitlist-no-heads-of-state-2023-5">1.9 million people</a> on the waitlist.</p>
<p>With so many people curious to get in, the Bluesky invites became a hot commodity. You can find them on eBay between A$50 and $200; some listings were asking much more.</p>
<p>The invitation-only design ensures steady user growth, avoiding a rapid influx of users followed by a sudden loss of interest.</p>
<p>And potential new users who patiently wait for an invitation are already familiar with Bluesky. Flooding other social media platforms with requests for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/16/it-has-high-ambitions-but-can-jack-dorseys-spinoff-bluesky-really-take-over-from-twitte">invitation codes creates extra interest</a>, too. </p>
<p>Every new Bluesky user knows at least one existing user. It ensures users have something in common to post about. </p>
<p>It would seem Bluesky’s creators aimed to selectively bring in like-minded individuals from the start, rather than attempting to retrospectively eliminate problematic users.</p>
<p>Thanks to a great deal of user control over the content they see, and a small and selective user base so far, many report they’ve <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/4/29/23702979/bluesky-twitter-elon-musk-jack-dorsey-chrissy-teigen-aoc-dril-decentralized">found</a> a friendly atmosphere and good <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-05-11/what-is-bluesky-and-can-it-replace-elon-musks-twitter/102316800">vibes</a> on Bluesky. </p>
<p>Others <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/podcasts/hard-fork-bluesky-ai-jobs.html">say</a> it feels almost like a group chat. Bluesky has particularly resonated with marginalised communities, especially <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/black-tech-twitter-trans-users-marginalized-groups-flock-bluesky-rcna82442">transgender people</a>, who may feel safer there expressing themselves than on other social media sites.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527432/original/file-20230522-23-by2qo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527432/original/file-20230522-23-by2qo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527432/original/file-20230522-23-by2qo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527432/original/file-20230522-23-by2qo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527432/original/file-20230522-23-by2qo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527432/original/file-20230522-23-by2qo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527432/original/file-20230522-23-by2qo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527432/original/file-20230522-23-by2qo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Many Twitter users have flocked to Bluesky.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>But will any of this last?</h2>
<p>As we’ve all seen, social media sites come and go.</p>
<p>Social media site Mastodon experienced explosive user growth in November last year, reaching <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/11/28/mastodon-social-ceo-eugen-rochko-twitter-elon-musk/">2.6 million</a> users within weeks, only to decline to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/apr/18/mastodon-users-twitter-elon-musk-social-media">1.2 million</a> within a couple of months. </p>
<p>Decentralised moderation <a href="https://www.webpurify.com/blog/moderating-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/">challenges</a> on Mastodon have resulted in what <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Mastodon/comments/103m54p/having_trouble_finding_lighter_funny_casual/">some</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/KateElliottSFF/status/1627172974259499009">users</a> have <a href="https://twitter.com/mutualaidalt/status/1593933691210076161">described</a> as a “stuffy” culture. This, coupled with the complicated interface and the hard to grasp <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/what-is-mastodon-the-alternative-social-network-now-blocked-by-twitter/">concept</a> of “belonging” to a server, may have affected its chance of lasting success.</p>
<p>Unlike Mastodon, Bluesky has a simple and straightforward interface. To remain relevant in the long term, Bluesky must strike a delicate balance between curbing hate speech and trolls while maintaining engaging content and discussions. All while being more captivating than your inner-circle group chats.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205995/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nataliya Ilyushina receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.</span></em></p>Twitter uses an AI-powered centrally managed algorithm to moderate what you see. On Bluesky, you have control over the algorithm that selects what you see through so-called ‘composable moderation’.Nataliya Ilyushina, Research Fellow, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1850862022-06-21T13:20:05Z2022-06-21T13:20:05ZAmericans gave a near-record $485 billion to charity in 2021, despite surging inflation rates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469584/original/file-20220617-24-c0era.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=76%2C0%2C3326%2C1897&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charitable donations fund a wide array of nonprofits, such as Habitat for Humanity.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/volunteers-participate-in-a-habitat-for-humanity-build-on-news-photo/1154518488?adppopup=true"> John Wolfsohn/Getty Image</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Boosted by <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/30/stock-marketfutures-open-to-close-news.html">a strong year for stocks</a> and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2022/01/27/us-economy-2021-gdp-growth/9236443002/">swift economic growth</a>, U.S. giving in 2021 totaled a <a href="https://philanthropy.iupui.edu/news-events/news-item/giving-usa:--total-u.s.-charitable-giving-remained-strong-in-2021,-reaching-$484.85-billion.html?id=392">near-record US$485 billion</a>.</p>
<p>Individuals, foundations, estates and corporations gave more to charity in 2021 than before the pandemic, according to the latest annual Giving USA report from the <a href="https://givingusa.org/">Giving USA Foundation</a>, released in partnership with the <a href="https://philanthropy.iupui.edu/">Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI</a>.</p>
<p>Giving was 0.7% below the inflation-adjusted <a href="https://theconversation.com/americans-gave-a-record-471-billion-to-charity-in-2020-amid-concerns-about-the-coronavirus-pandemic-job-losses-and-racial-justice-161489">all-time high of $488 billion in 2020</a> – when donors responded to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ensuing recession and an outpouring of concern over racial injustices.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=list_works&hl=en&user=KbjWCpcAAAAJ">two of the lead</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=plWgMBcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">researchers</a> who produced this report, we found that inflation changed how far each charitable dollar went in 2021. We also saw that a significant percentage of giving came from extremely large gifts and that many charities whose 2020 donations declined may have experienced a rebound.</p>
<h2>Did inflation affect giving?</h2>
<p>Inflation – <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/16/everyone-knows-inflation-is-on-fire-heres-whats-really-fueling-it.html">the rate at which purchasing power</a> for food, rent and energy costs declines – was higher in 2021 than it has been in recent years. </p>
<p>When inflation heats up, <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/high-inflation-leaves-food-banks-struggling-to-meet-needs">charities need more money to keep up with rising costs</a>. Household budgets can also get strained by rising costs of living. But charitable giving doesn’t automatically fall when inflation rates rise. In <a href="https://inflationdata.com/articles/inflation-cpi-consumer-price-index-1980-1989/">1988 and 1989</a>, for example, inflation exceeded 4% annually, but <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=226702">charitable giving grew</a> in both years – even when adjusted for inflation.</p>
<p>However, higher inflation, particularly over time, can influence other economic trends that are more likely to influence how much money is donated. Those changes, in turn, can lead to declines in giving.</p>
<p>With inflation running at a <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/consumer-prices-up-8-5-percent-for-year-ended-march-2022.htm">much faster clip in 2022 than 2021</a>, we’re keeping an eye on any effects it may have on giving until rates subside. </p>
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<h2>Role of megadonors</h2>
<p>Individual donors gave $327 billion in 2021, or two-thirds of all charitable dollars. Ten gifts of $450 million or more, which totaled $15 billion, accounted for roughly 5% of all individual giving.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469585/original/file-20220617-16-rqv41r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bald man with a thick graying beard and a bright yellow and orange tie-dye shirt looks off into the distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469585/original/file-20220617-16-rqv41r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469585/original/file-20220617-16-rqv41r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469585/original/file-20220617-16-rqv41r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469585/original/file-20220617-16-rqv41r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469585/original/file-20220617-16-rqv41r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469585/original/file-20220617-16-rqv41r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469585/original/file-20220617-16-rqv41r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was among the nation’s biggest donors in 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jack-dorsey-creator-co-founder-and-chairman-of-twitter-and-news-photo/1321753242?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Some of the largest donations made in 2021 went to <a href="https://theconversation.com/charitable-gifts-from-donor-advised-funds-favor-education-and-religion-171793">donor-advised funds</a>, financial accounts known as DAFs. </p>
<p>Two billionaires who took that route were Twitter co-founder and former CEO <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/the-philanthropy-50/#id=details_628_2021">Jack Dorsey</a> and SpaceX and Tesla CEO <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-elon-musk-saved-big-on-taxes-by-giving-away-a-ton-of-his-tesla-stock-172036">Elon Musk</a>.</p>
<p>Donors who transfer money into DAFs get big tax deductions right away but can decide which causes to support later. That’s similar to what happens when someone <a href="https://learning.candid.org/resources/knowledge-base/what-is-a-foundation/">moves wealth into a foundation</a>.</p>
<p>But while <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/private-foundations">foundations are required to report every grant they make</a>, all the money distributed to a particular charity from DAFs that are held at the same DAF-sponsoring organization is lumped together. This makes it impossible to separate out one individual’s support for specific causes. As a consequence, some donors may prefer to give through a DAF rather than a foundation for the anonymity.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/business/mackenzie-scott-philanthropy.html">MacKenzie Scott</a> has given <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-mackenzie-scotts-12-billion-in-gifts-to-charity-reflect-an-uncommon-trust-in-the-groups-she-supports-173496">at least $12 billion to charity</a> since her 2019 divorce from Jeff Bezos without starting a foundation, and instead <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/04/06/mackenzie-scott-elon-musk-mark-zuckerberg-charity-donor-advised-funds/">relies partly on donor-advised funds</a>. In 2021, she continued to quickly channel large sums of money into nonprofits, especially those assisting people of color and underfunded communities.</p>
<p>We expect transparency to be an important issue for our research in the future. As megagifts grow as a share of individual giving, it is important to understand how much megadonors are giving and where the dollars are going.</p>
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<h2>A rebound for the arts</h2>
<p>Giving to the arts, culture and humanities rose by 22% in 2021 as many museums, theaters, ballet companies and other arts groups resumed in-person events and found ways to continue to make use of hybrid events. That growth, the biggest for any of the nine categories we track, marked a sharp reversal from 2020, when those gifts fell 7%. </p>
<p>Similarly, gifts related to health, a category that includes donations to hospitals, grew 2.9% in 2021 after a 6.9% decline a year earlier.</p>
<p>Conversely, gifts slated for colleges, universities and other educational causes fell 7.2% in 2021, following a 15% increase in 2020.</p>
<p>Overall, giving in 2021 stayed well above pre-pandemic levels. The total donated was at least 5% higher than in 2019 for seven of the nine categories we track. </p>
<p><iframe id="fpzii" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/fpzii/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185086/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some of the largest donations made in 2021 went to donor-advised funds, financial accounts known as DAFs.Anna Pruitt, Associate Director of Research, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, and Managing Editor, Giving USA, IUPUIJon Bergdoll, Applied Statistician of Philanthropy, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1817732022-04-25T23:34:11Z2022-04-25T23:34:11ZElon Musk argues Twitter is better off without a board of directors – is he right?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459609/original/file-20220425-2721-hz88wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=108%2C54%2C5062%2C3225&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Twitter may soon be without the benefits – or the problems – of a public board of directors.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/large-boardroom-business-meeting-royalty-free-illustration/508876372?adppopup=true">A-Digit/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/twitter-musk-deal/card/elon-musk-s-twitter-acquisition-a-timeline-fI3LhbZ0Q1koe3aUSKHZ">After a wild ride</a>, it looks like Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/04/technology/elon-musk-twitter-deal.html">may be back on</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://investor.twitterinc.com/corporate-governance/board-of-directors/default.aspx">Twitter’s board of directors</a> had sued the Tesla billionaire in July 2022 when Musk tried to terminate the US$44 billion deal. The board has yet to drop its lawsuit, with a trial <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-05/musk-twitter-judge-says-oct-17-trial-is-still-on-for-now?srnd=premium&sref=Hjm5biAW">still scheduled to begin Oct. 17, 2022</a>, which was intended to force Musk to complete the buyout. </p>
<p>The board has in fact been at the center of this saga since the beginning, when Musk launched his hostile takeover bid while <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-twitter-board-stock-ownership-compares-musk-tesla-51650304124">criticizing board members</a> for owning almost no shares of the company they oversee. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/18/twitters-ex-ceo-criticizes-board-musk-says-they-own-almost-no-shares.html">called the board the “dysfunction of the company</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=j97Zw9IAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">As experts</a> on <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=dvEc5eUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">corporate governance</a>, we believe this feud raised two important corporate governance questions: What purpose does a board of directors serve? And does it matter if a member owns company stock or not? </p>
<h2>‘A bad board will kill’</h2>
<p>“Good boards don’t create good companies, but a bad board will kill a company every time.”</p>
<p>Venture capitalist Fred Destin <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/valuation-vs-bad-vc-tradeoff-fred-destin/">wrote that in 2018</a>, citing what he called an “old Silicon Valley proverb.” The quote has been making the rounds on Twitter recently in light of Musk’s hostile bid. It even seemed to get a nod from Dorsey himself <a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/1515536972995088385?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">when he replied to a tweet</a> containing the quote with “big facts.” </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459601/original/file-20220425-116757-cd73cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white man with a long beard and gray suit stares straight ahead while appearing to open his mouth to speak" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459601/original/file-20220425-116757-cd73cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459601/original/file-20220425-116757-cd73cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459601/original/file-20220425-116757-cd73cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459601/original/file-20220425-116757-cd73cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459601/original/file-20220425-116757-cd73cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459601/original/file-20220425-116757-cd73cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459601/original/file-20220425-116757-cd73cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Twitter founder Jack Dorsey called the board the ‘dysfunction of the company.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Twitter-Dorsey/f8c70619918548d3a8a2ebe581cbb948/photo?Query=jack%20dorsey&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=290&currentItemNo=6">Michael Reynolds/Pool Photo via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This tweet and the general conversation that has emerged have important implications for understanding boards and their role in shepherding a company. </p>
<p>Broadly speaking, a <a href="https://www.boardeffect.com/blog/10-basic-responsibilities-board-members/">board’s most important roles</a> include hiring, paying and monitoring the chief executive officer.</p>
<p>Academic research suggests that board members at large companies – who <a href="https://work.chron.com/director-corporate-board-paid-19587.html">typically receive generous compensation packages</a> – may be limited in their ability to perform these tasks effectively. In our work, we found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/19416520.2016.1120957">boards often find it impossible</a> to conduct adequate monitoring and rein in wayward CEOs because there’s just so much information for modern boards to process with their <a href="https://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/research/upside-having-busy-board-members">limited time</a>. And the social dynamics involved in the board also make it difficult for directors to speak up and oppose other directors.</p>
<p>In a separate study involving face-to-face interviews with directors, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3320">we were consistently told</a> that directors take their board service seriously and operate with their companies’ best interests in mind. But they do so with an eye toward collaborating with the CEO and the rest of the executive team rather than serving as impartial observers, as their “independent” status suggests they should. </p>
<p>While our work didn’t focus on this, if the board and the CEO fundamentally disagree about the direction of company – which was often the case <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/jack-dorsey-failed-twitter-parag-agrawal-will-be-way-better.html">between Dorsey and the Twitter board</a> – it would certainly be problematic and could lead to less than optimal decisions being made. </p>
<p>In other words, a board that isn’t functioning effectively can definitely destroy a company’s value. And <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/why-would-elon-musk-want-to-buy-twitter">some reporting suggests</a> that’s what happened to Twitter, whose <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TWTR/">shares were trading at less than half</a> their 2021 peak before Musk disclosed he had <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/05/1090992306/elon-musk-takes-a-9-stake-in-twitter-to-become-its-largest-shareholder">amassed a 9% ownership stake</a>. </p>
<h2>A raider’s lament</h2>
<p>That brings us to the next question: Does not owning a significant stake in a company you oversee make it more likely that you’ll run it into the ground, as Musk seemed to suggest? </p>
<p>A few days after <a href="https://theconversation.com/elon-musks-bid-spotlights-twitters-unique-role-in-public-discourse-and-what-changes-might-be-in-store-181374">making his takeover offer</a> on April 14, the billionaire, <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1515403974802870279">responding to a tweet</a> showing how few shares Twitter board members own, posted that its directors’ “economic interests are simply not aligned with shareholders.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1515403974802870279"}"></div></p>
<p>Musk’s arguments harked back to takeover bids from the 1980s in which activist investors – or “corporate raiders” – would argue that executives’ interests <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/economics-econometrics-and-finance/activist-shareholders">did not align with those of shareholders</a>. As Gordon Gekko from the film “Wall Street” <a href="https://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechwallstreet.html">famously railed against executives</a> of a business he wanted to take over, “Today, management has no stake in the company!”</p>
<p>Musk’s words echo Gekko’s “greed is good” speech, except in regard to independent directors, who <a href="https://www.spencerstuart.com/-/media/2021/october/ssbi2021/us-spencer-stuart-board-index-2021.pdf">comprise the vast majority</a> of corporate boards. By definition, an independent or outside director is one who doesn’t hold an executive role in running the company, such as chief executive officer or chief financial officer. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PF_iorX_MAw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Greed is good’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In reality, Twitter’s board share ownership is very similar to that of other companies. </p>
<p>Independent Twitter directors <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000114036122014049/ny20001921x3_def14a.htm">held a median ownership stake of 0.003%</a> as of May 2022. For comparison, we looked at equity ownership of independent directors of companies listed in the S&P 500 stock index in 2021. We found the median stake was less than 0.01%, and all but a handful of directors held less than 1% of the company’s stock. Median ownership at Musk’s <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001318605/000156459021044307/tsla-pre14a_20210813.htm">company Tesla is similarly minuscule, at 0.23%</a>. </p>
<p>Whether this makes a difference to a company’s success is hard to assess because research on the topic is rather sparse, in large part because board members have so little equity. </p>
<h2>Mixed research</h2>
<p>Academic researchers on effective corporate governance in the 1970s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/467037">argued that outside directors</a> should avoid owning many shares in the companies they oversee to maintain objectivity. More recently, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206312460680">management scholars have suggested</a> that higher stakes could <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2014.0066">provide a way to motivate</a> directors to monitor management and make decisions more in line with shareholder interests. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459604/original/file-20220425-22-6csb6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screenshot of a webpage depicting a round mug shot of a white man in sunglasses on a wide picture of planets and the words Elon Musk on his twitter page" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459604/original/file-20220425-22-6csb6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459604/original/file-20220425-22-6csb6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459604/original/file-20220425-22-6csb6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459604/original/file-20220425-22-6csb6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459604/original/file-20220425-22-6csb6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459604/original/file-20220425-22-6csb6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459604/original/file-20220425-22-6csb6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elon Musk, who currently has about 108 million Twitter followers, has revived his offer to buy the social media giant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TwitterMusk/f72e6080fc7c42ce98b2ba27802182d6/photo?Query=elon%20musk&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1175&currentItemNo=6">AP Photo/Eric Risberg</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some researchers have found that boards with larger ownership stakes <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022109013000045">can improve</a> a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/497048">company’s operational performance</a> and <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.5465/256355">better align outside directors</a> with the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-405X(89)90084-6">interests of shareholders</a>. </p>
<p>But other work that examined multiple studies shows the impact of director stock ownership <a href="https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Larcker-Corporate-Governance-Matters-A-Closer-Look-at-Organizational-Choices-and-Their-Consequences-2nd-Edition/PGM265559.html">is mixed at best</a>, with some studies suggesting higher stakes potentially lead to negative outcomes, such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2005.08.005">excessive executive and director compensation</a>.</p>
<p>Since the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 <a href="https://www.sarbanes-oxley-101.com/sarbanes-oxley-faq.htm">after massive accounting scandals</a> at Enron, WorldCom and elsewhere, corporate governance issues such as board oversight <a href="https://www.nyulawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/NYULawReview-82-4-Brown.pdf">have become increasingly important</a>. This led to a number of changes intended to align the interests of managers and those of shareholders, including a focus on board independence and adjusting executive compensation. </p>
<p>Although our research shows boards are limited in their ability to monitor management, <a href="https://theconversation.com/elon-musk-argues-twitter-would-be-better-off-in-private-rather-than-public-hands-corporate-governance-scholars-would-disagree-181382">they’re still better than nothing</a>.</p>
<p>In his original letter to shareholders announcing his bid, Musk <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465922045641/tm2212748d1_sc13da.htm">vowed to “unlock” Twitter’s potential</a> as a <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/05/publictoprivate.asp">private company</a>, without a public board. We may finally learn if he’s right.</p>
<p><em>This is article has been updated to reflect the changing status of the Twitter deal.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181773/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Musk, who revived his bid for Twitter after the social media company’s board sued to enforce the deal, has been very critical of its board.Michael Withers, Associate Professor of Business, Texas A&M UniversitySteven Boivie, Professor of Management, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1819232022-04-25T21:07:54Z2022-04-25T21:07:54ZElon Musk’s plans for Twitter could make its misinformation problems worse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459590/original/file-20220425-13-feqjsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C4004&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Elon Musk's moment of triumph is a moment of uncertainty for the future of one of the world's leading social media platforms.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/USMuskTwitter/360b354555564c63931e87a4eee568c6/photo">AP Photo/John Raoux</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-and-elon-musk-strike-deal-for-takeover-11650912837">acquired Twitter</a> in a US$44 billion deal on April 25, 2022, 11 days after announcing his bid for the company. Twitter announced that the public company will become <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/elon-musk-to-acquire-twitter-301532245.html">privately held after the acquisition is complete</a>. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465922045641/tm2212748d1_sc13da.htm">filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission</a> for his initial bid for the company, Musk stated, “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=JpFHYKcAAAAJ">researcher of social media platforms</a>, I find that Musk’s ownership of Twitter and his stated reasons for buying the company raise important issues. Those issues stem from the nature of the social media platform and what sets it apart from others.</p>
<h2>What makes Twitter unique</h2>
<p>Twitter occupies a unique niche. Its short chunks of text and threading foster real-time conversations among thousands of people, which makes it popular with celebrities, media personalities and politicians alike.</p>
<p>Social media analysts talk about the half-life of content on a platform, meaning the time it takes for a piece of content to reach 50% of its total lifetime engagement, usually measured in number of views or popularity based metrics. The average half life of a tweet is <a href="https://www.business2community.com/social-media-articles/how-your-contents-half-life-should-drastically-impact-your-social-media-strategy-in-2020-02290478">about 20 minutes</a>, compared to five hours for Facebook posts, 20 hours for Instagram posts, 24 hours for LinkedIn posts and 20 days for YouTube videos. The much shorter half life illustrates the central role Twitter has come to occupy in driving real-time conversations as events unfold.</p>
<p>Twitter’s ability to shape real-time discourse, as well as the ease with which data, including geo-tagged data, can be gathered from Twitter has made it a gold mine for researchers to analyze a variety of societal phenomena, ranging from public health to politics. Twitter data has been used to predict <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7045443">asthma-related emergency department visits</a>, measure <a href="https://www.cs.jhu.edu/%7Emdredze/publications/2016_ossm.pdf">public epidemic awareness</a>, and model <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1218528">wildfire smoke dispersion</a>. </p>
<p>Tweets that are part of a conversation are <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/a/2013/keep-up-with-conversations-on-twitter">shown in chronological order</a>, and, even though much of a tweet’s engagement is frontloaded, the Twitter archive <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/a/2015/full-archive-search-api">provides instant and complete access to every public Tweet</a>. This positions Twitter as a <a href="https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/1514590065674047488">historical chronicler of record</a> and a de facto fact checker.</p>
<h2>Changes on Musk’s mind</h2>
<p>A crucial issue is how Musk’s ownership of Twitter, and private control of social media platforms generally, affect the broader public well-being. In a series of deleted tweets, Musk made several <a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/twitter-shares-fall-after-musk-ditches-potential-board-role">suggestions about how to change Twitter</a>, including adding an edit button for tweets and granting automatic verification marks to premium users. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1511143607385874434"}"></div></p>
<p>There is no experimental evidence about how an edit button would change information transmission on Twitter. However, it’s possible to extrapolate from previous research that analyzed deleted tweets. </p>
<p>There are numerous ways to <a href="https://www.tweettabs.com/find-deleted-tweets/">retrieve deleted tweets</a>, which allows researchers to study them. While some studies show <a href="https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM16/paper/viewPaper/13133">significant personality differences</a> between users who delete their tweets and those who don’t, these findings suggest that deleting tweets is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1257041">way for people to manage their online identities</a>.</p>
<p>Analyzing deleting behavior can also yield valuable clues about <a href="https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/14874">online credibility and disinformation</a>. Similarly, if Twitter adds an edit button, analyzing the patterns of editing behavior could provide insights into Twitter users’ motivations and how they present themselves.</p>
<p>Studies of bot-generated activity on Twitter have concluded that <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/20/859814085/researchers-nearly-half-of-accounts-tweeting-about-coronavirus-are-likely-bots">nearly half of accounts tweeting about COVID-19 are likely bots</a>. Given <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804840115">partisanship and political polarization in online spaces</a>, allowing users – whether they are automated bots or actual people – the option to edit their tweets could become another weapon in the disinformation arsenal used by bots and propagandists. Editing tweets could allow users to selectively distort what they said, or deny making inflammatory remarks, which could complicate efforts to trace misinformation.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1514590065674047488"}"></div></p>
<p>Musk has also indicated his intention to combat twitter bots, or automated accounts that post rapidly and repeatedly in the guise of people. He has called for <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517215736606957573">authenticating users as real human beings</a>. </p>
<p>Given <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3131365.3131385">challenges such as doxxing</a> and other malicious personal harms online, it’s important for user authentication methods to preserve privacy. This is particularly important for activists, dissidents and whistleblowers who face threats for their online activities. Mechanisms such as <a href="https://www.ijert.org/decentralized-access-control-technique-with-anonymous-authentication">decentralized protocols</a> can enable authentication without sacrificing anonymity. </p>
<h2>Twitter’s content moderation and revenue model</h2>
<p>To understand Musk’s motivations and what lies next for social media platforms such as Twitter, it’s important to consider the gargantuan – and opaque – <a href="https://warzel.substack.com/p/the-internets-original-sin?s=r">online advertising ecosystem</a> involving multiple technologies wielded by ad networks, social media companies and publishers. Advertising is the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/social-media-may-have-to-embrace-the-musk-11649691208">primary revenue source for Twitter</a>. </p>
<p>Musk’s vision is to <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/musk-proposes-twitter-blue-subscription-024424750.html">generate revenue for Twitter from subscriptions</a> rather than advertising. Without having to worry about attracting and retaining advertisers, Twitter would have less pressure to focus on content moderation. This could make Twitter a sort of freewheeling opinion site for paying subscribers. In contrast, until now Twitter has been <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2021/02/10/content-moderation-case-study-twitter-attempts-to-tackle-covid-related-vaccine-misinformation-2020/">aggressive in using content moderation</a> in its attempts to address disinformation.</p>
<p>Musk’s description of a <a href="https://qz.com/2155098/elon-musks-twitter-bid-isnt-about-free-speech/">platform free from content moderation issues</a> is troubling in light of the algorithmic harms caused by social media platforms. Research has shown a host of these harms, such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3468507.3468512">algorithms that assign gender</a> to users, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3287560.3287587">potential inaccuracies and biases in algorithms</a> used to glean information from these platforms, and the impact on those <a href="https://theconversation.com/biases-in-algorithms-hurt-those-looking-for-information-on-health-140616">looking for health information online</a>. </p>
<p>Testimony by Facebook whistleblower <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/10/05/1036519/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-algorithms/">Frances Haugen</a> and recent regulatory efforts such as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/14/how-free-speech-absolutist-elon-musk-would-transform-twitter">online safety bill unveiled in the U.K.</a> show there is broad public concern about the role played by technology platforms in shaping popular discourse and public opinion. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/14/how-free-speech-absolutist-elon-musk-would-transform-twitter">highlights a whole host of regulatory concerns</a>. </p>
<p>Because of Musk’s other businesses, Twitter’s <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/how-does-social-media-influence-financial-markets-2019-10-14">ability to influence public opinion</a> in the sensitive industries of aviation and the automobile industry automatically creates a conflict of interest, not to mention affects the disclosure of <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/materialinsiderinformation.asp">material information</a> necessary for shareholders. Musk has already been accused of <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-shareholder-lawsuit/">delaying disclosure of his ownership stake in Twitter</a>.</p>
<p>Twitter’s own <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/insights/2021/learnings-from-the-first-algorithmic-bias-bounty-challenge">algorithmic bias bounty challenge</a> concluded that there needs to be a community-led approach to build better algorithms. A very creative exercise developed by the MIT Media Lab asks middle schoolers to <a href="https://www.media.mit.edu/galleries/youtube-redesign/">re-imagine the YouTube platform with ethics in mind</a>. Perhaps it’s time to ask Musk to do the same with Twitter.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/elon-musks-bid-spotlights-twitters-unique-role-in-public-discourse-and-what-changes-might-be-in-store-181374">an article</a> originally published on April 15, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181923/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anjana Susarla receives funding from the National Institute of Health and from the Omura-Saxena Professorship in Responsible AI. </span></em></p>Twitter, more than other social media platforms, fosters real-time discussion about events as they unfold. That could change now that Musk has gained control of the company.Anjana Susarla, Professor of Information Systems, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1813742022-04-15T14:42:22Z2022-04-15T14:42:22ZElon Musk’s bid spotlights Twitter’s unique role in public discourse – and what changes might be in store<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458321/original/file-20220415-22-vd2ph3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5760%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Twitter may not be a darling of Wall Street, but it occupies a unique place in the social media landscape.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CapitolRiotInvestigationTech/d85dc445f8e84d0c9d08c8402a0d300a/photo">AP Photo/Richard Drew</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Twitter has been in the news a lot lately, albeit for the wrong reasons. Its stock growth has languished and the platform itself has <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1059756077/jack-dorsey-steps-down-as-twitter-ceo">largely remained the same since its founding</a> in 2006. On April 14, 2022, Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-14/elon-musk-launches-43-billion-hostile-takeover-of-twitter">made an offer to buy Twitter</a> and take the public company private. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465922045641/tm2212748d1_sc13da.htm">filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission</a>, Musk stated, “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=JpFHYKcAAAAJ">researcher of social media platforms</a>, I find that Musk’s potential ownership of Twitter and his stated reasons for buying the company raise important issues. Those issues stem from the nature of the social media platform and what sets it apart from others.</p>
<h2>What makes Twitter unique</h2>
<p>Twitter occupies a unique niche. Its short chunks of text and threading foster real-time conversations among thousands of people, which makes it popular with celebrities, media personalities and politicians alike.</p>
<p>Social media analysts talk about the half-life of content on a platform, meaning the time it takes for a piece of content to reach 50% of its total lifetime engagement, usually measured in number of views or popularity based metrics. The average half life of a tweet is <a href="https://www.business2community.com/social-media-articles/how-your-contents-half-life-should-drastically-impact-your-social-media-strategy-in-2020-02290478">about 20 minutes</a>, compared to five hours for Facebook posts, 20 hours for Instagram posts, 24 hours for LinkedIn posts and 20 days for YouTube videos. The much shorter half life illustrates the central role Twitter has come to occupy in driving real-time conversations as events unfold.</p>
<p>Twitter’s ability to shape real-time discourse, as well as the ease with which data, including geo-tagged data, can be gathered from Twitter has made it a gold mine for researchers to analyze a variety of societal phenomena, ranging from public health to politics. Twitter data has been used to predict <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7045443">asthma-related emergency department visits</a>, measure <a href="https://www.cs.jhu.edu/%7Emdredze/publications/2016_ossm.pdf">public epidemic awareness</a>, and model <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1218528">wildfire smoke dispersion</a>. </p>
<p>Tweets that are part of a conversation are <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/a/2013/keep-up-with-conversations-on-twitter">shown in chronological order</a>, and, even though much of a tweet’s engagement is frontloaded, the Twitter archive <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/a/2015/full-archive-search-api">provides instant and complete access to every public Tweet</a>. This positions Twitter as a <a href="https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/1514590065674047488">historical chronicler of record</a> and a de facto fact checker.</p>
<h2>Changes on Musk’s mind</h2>
<p>A crucial issue is how Musk’s ownership of Twitter, and private control of social media platforms generally, affect the broader public well-being. In a series of deleted tweets, Musk made several <a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/twitter-shares-fall-after-musk-ditches-potential-board-role">suggestions about how to change Twitter</a>, including adding an edit button for tweets and granting automatic verification marks to premium users. </p>
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<p>There is no experimental evidence about how an edit button would change information transmission on Twitter. However, it’s possible to extrapolate from previous research that analyzed deleted tweets. </p>
<p>There are numerous ways to <a href="https://www.tweettabs.com/find-deleted-tweets/">retrieve deleted tweets</a>, which allows researchers to study them. While some studies show <a href="https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM16/paper/viewPaper/13133">significant personality differences</a> between users who delete their tweets and those who don’t, these findings suggest that deleting tweets is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1257041">way for people to manage their online identities</a>.</p>
<p>Analyzing deleting behavior can also yield valuable clues about <a href="https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/14874">online credibility and disinformation</a>. Similarly, if Twitter adds an edit button, analyzing the patterns of editing behavior could provide insights into Twitter users’ motivations and how they present themselves.</p>
<p>Studies of bot-generated activity on Twitter have concluded that <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/20/859814085/researchers-nearly-half-of-accounts-tweeting-about-coronavirus-are-likely-bots">nearly half of accounts tweeting about COVID-19 are likely bots</a>. Given <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804840115">partisanship and political polarization in online spaces</a>, allowing users – whether they are automated bots or actual people – the option to edit their tweets could become another weapon in the disinformation arsenal used by bots and propagandists. Editing tweets could allow users to selectively distort what they said, or deny making inflammatory remarks, which could complicate efforts to trace misinformation.</p>
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<h2>Twitter’s content moderation and revenue model</h2>
<p>To understand Musk’s motivations and what lies next for social media platforms such as Twitter, it’s important to consider the gargantuan – and opaque – <a href="https://warzel.substack.com/p/the-internets-original-sin?s=r">online advertising ecosystem</a> involving multiple technologies wielded by ad networks, social media companies and publishers. Advertising is the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/social-media-may-have-to-embrace-the-musk-11649691208">primary revenue source for Twitter</a>. </p>
<p>Musk’s vision is to generate revenue for Twitter from subscriptions rather than advertising. Without having to worry about attracting and retaining advertisers, Twitter would have less pressure to focus on content moderation. This would make Twitter a sort of freewheeling opinion site for paying subscribers. Twitter has been <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2021/02/10/content-moderation-case-study-twitter-attempts-to-tackle-covid-related-vaccine-misinformation-2020/">aggressive in using content moderation</a> in its attempts to address disinformation.</p>
<p>Musk’s description of a <a href="https://qz.com/2155098/elon-musks-twitter-bid-isnt-about-free-speech/">platform free from content moderation issues</a> is troubling in light of the algorithmic harms caused by social media platforms. Research has shown a host of these harms, such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3468507.3468512">algorithms that assign gender</a> to users, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3287560.3287587">potential inaccuracies and biases in algorithms</a> used to glean information from these platforms, and the impact on those <a href="https://theconversation.com/biases-in-algorithms-hurt-those-looking-for-information-on-health-140616">looking for health information online</a>. </p>
<p>Testimony by Facebook whistleblower <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/10/05/1036519/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-algorithms/">Frances Haugen</a> and recent regulatory efforts such as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/14/how-free-speech-absolutist-elon-musk-would-transform-twitter">online safety bill unveiled in the U.K.</a> show there is broad public concern about the role played by technology platforms in shaping popular discourse and public opinion. Musk’s potential bid for Twitter <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/14/how-free-speech-absolutist-elon-musk-would-transform-twitter">highlights a whole host of regulatory concerns</a>. </p>
<p>Because of Musk’s other businesses, Twitter’s <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/how-does-social-media-influence-financial-markets-2019-10-14">ability to influence public opinion</a> in the sensitive industries of aviation and the automobile industry would automatically create a conflict of interest, not to mention affecting the disclosure of <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/materialinsiderinformation.asp">material information</a> necessary for shareholders. Musk has already been accused of <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-shareholder-lawsuit/">delaying disclosure of his ownership stake in Twitter</a>.</p>
<p>Twitter’s own <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/insights/2021/learnings-from-the-first-algorithmic-bias-bounty-challenge">algorithmic bias bounty challenge</a> concluded that there needs to be a community-led approach to build better algorithms. A very creative exercise developed by the MIT Media Lab asks middle schoolers to <a href="https://www.media.mit.edu/galleries/youtube-redesign/">re-imagine the YouTube platform with ethics in mind</a>. Perhaps it’s time to ask Twitter to do the same, whoever owns and manages the company.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anjana Susarla receives funding from the National Institute of Health and from the Omura-Saxena Professorship in Responsible AI. </span></em></p>Twitter, more than other social media platforms, fosters real-time discussion about events as they unfold. That could change if Musk gains control of the company.Anjana Susarla, Professor of Information Systems, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1757782022-02-08T17:14:23Z2022-02-08T17:14:23ZThe 50 biggest US donors gave or pledged nearly $28 billion in 2021 – Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates account for $15 billion of that total<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444888/original/file-20220207-15-1lrn0ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=432%2C288%2C5227%2C3284&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, gave their foundation $15 billion right before their divorce became final. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bill-gates-and-his-wife-melinda-gates-introduce-the-news-photo/1040713592">Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty ImagesLudovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The 50 Americans who gave or pledged the most to charity in 2021 committed to giving a total of US$27.7 billion to hospitals, universities, museums and more – up 12% from 2020 levels, according to the <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/package/philanthropy-50-2021s-top-donors">Chronicle of Philanthropy</a>’s latest annual tally of these donations.</em></p>
<p><em>More than half of this money came from just two particularly big donors: <a href="https://apnews.com/article/science-business-endowments-bill-gates-melinda-french-gates-cb45fe0a97b8f41c51f44f3226c47218">Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates</a>. Shortly before their <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/02/tech/bill-melinda-gates-divorce-finalized/index.html">divorce became final, in August 2021</a>, they announced plans to add <a href="https://apnews.com/article/science-business-endowments-bill-gates-melinda-french-gates-cb45fe0a97b8f41c51f44f3226c47218">$15 billion to their foundation’s coffers</a>.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VYsdAEIAAAAJ&hl=en">David Campbell</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=tu70lmIAAAAJ">Elizabeth Dale</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=uqv9NgwAAAAJ">Jasmine McGinnis Johnson</a>, three scholars of philanthropy, assess what these gifts mean, the possible motivations behind them and what they hope to see in the future in terms of charitable giving in the United States.</em></p>
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<h2>What trends stand out overall?</h2>
<p><strong>Elizabeth Dale</strong>: First, let’s acknowledge who is missing: <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/mackenzie-scott-93924">MacKenzie Scott</a>. The novelist and billionaire publicly shared that she had <a href="https://mackenzie-scott.medium.com/?p=ea6de642bf">given over $2.7 billion in the first half of 2021</a>. She then changed course, <a href="https://mackenzie-scott.medium.com/no-dollar-signs-this-time-ec7ab2a87261">choosing not to disclose</a> how much money she gave away in the second half of the year, or the organizations she supported, as an effort to deflect media attention. The Chronicle said it left her out because neither she nor her consultants provided the details it requested.</p>
<p>Had the publication included her, even if only the gifts she made in half the year, she would have occupied the No. 2 spot again. Scott was only behind her ex-husband, Jeff Bezos, on the Chronicle’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-25-billion-the-biggest-us-donors-gave-in-2020-says-about-high-dollar-charity-today-154466">2020 list</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/package/bezoses-and-bloomberg-top-chronicle-list-of-the-50-donors-who-gave-the-most-to-charity">In 2018</a>, prior to their divorce, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates topped the list together, but they didn’t make the <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/the-philanthropy-50/#id=browse_2019">2019 list at all</a>. </p>
<p>Tracking where giving goes, even for the largest donations, is an imperfect science. Scholars, journalists and other experts must rely on publicly available information and details the donors themselves provide to compile this data, and the full details aren’t always available. For example, even in this list, we don’t know everything about these gifts, how much was already given and the ways organizations will put this money to use. </p>
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<p><strong>Jasmine McGinnis Johnson</strong>: Following the police killings of <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/racial-equity-donations-soared-then-fell-in-the-months-after-george-floyds-murder-by-a-police-officer-11619037824">George Floyd and Breonna Taylor</a>, many foundations and philanthropists were thinking more critically about what was the appropriate way to fund racial equity and social justice nonprofits. </p>
<p>In 2020, those gifts totaled <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-25-billion-the-biggest-us-donors-gave-in-2020-says-about-high-dollar-charity-today-154466">$66 billion</a>, making them the 14th-highest priority of the nation’s top 50 donors. In 2021, donations aimed at reducing racism and supporting Black-led organizations didn’t make it to a list of these donors’ highest 20 funding priorities. </p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/">police brutality</a> continuing unabated and the growth of <a href="https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/money/mutual-aid-crowd-funding-explainer">mutual aid organizations</a> focused on race and social justice, I find this ebbing of interest surprising.</p>
<p>However, I also see some reasons to be hopeful in other research completed in 2021.</p>
<p>Many Americans, <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-hispanic-and-asian-american-donors-give-more-to-social-and-racial-justice-causes-as-well-as-strangers-in-need-new-survey-166720">especially people of color</a>, are <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/diverse-donors-led-the-shift-to-social-and-racial-justice-giving-in-2020-new-report-says">donating to racial justice causes</a>. In 2020, for example, 16% of all households gave to these causes, up from 13% in 2019.</p>
<p><strong>David Campbell</strong>: The biggest donors responded to challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, sharply increasing their giving to social service organizations, including food banks and housing groups. In 2021, that giving receded so much that food banks and housing didn’t make it into a list of the top 20 causes for the biggest donors. One explanation for this may be that when seismic events influence giving, those effects diminish over time.</p>
<p>In keeping with past years, these wealthy donors <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs12115-021-00580-0">emphasized higher education and health-related</a> giving, through donations to colleges, universities, hospitals and medical research.</p>
<h2>What should the public know about 2021’s top two donors?</h2>
<p><strong>Dale</strong>: With an endowment valued at over $50 billion, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has, by far, <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/how-the-10-biggest-foundations-changed-in-a-year-of-covid-and-whats-next">more assets than any other U.S. institution of its kind</a>. </p>
<p>The foundation, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gates-Foundation">established in 2000</a>, is <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/why-we-need-to-keep-an-eye-on-the-gates-foundations-board-expansion">getting more scrutiny</a> than it used to, especially with respect to its bureaucratic and data-driven approach. It also has <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/articles/2022-gates-foundation-annual-letter-trustees">four new board members</a> who joined after billionaire investor <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210623005262/en/">Warren Buffett stepped down</a> in 2021.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/melinda-french-gates-no-longer-pledges-bulk-of-her-wealth-to-gates-foundation-11643808602">Melinda French Gates’ future role</a> in the foundation <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/gates-foundation-ceo-insists-that-french-gates-remains-engaged-102563">is uncertain</a>. She <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-releases/2021/07/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-mark-suzman-plans-evolve-governance">could step down as a trustee</a> in 2023 if she and Bill Gates determine they can no longer work together.</p>
<p><strong>Campbell</strong>: Since its founding, the <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/">Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation</a> has distributed <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/foundation-fact-sheet">over $60 billion</a> to causes tied to eradicating <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/">diseases and reducing poverty and inequity around the world</a>. </p>
<p>In 2021, it announced plans to spend $2.1 billion within five years on women’s economic empowerment and leadership, and boosting <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-releases/2021/06/gates-foundation-commits-2-1-billion-to-advance-gender-equality-globally">women and girls’ health and family planning</a>.</p>
<p>The foundation has <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-big-bets-on-educational-reform-havent-fixed-the-us-school-system-92327">delved heavily into K-12 education</a> in the U.S. – with mixed results, as the <a href="https://www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual-Letter">Gateses themselves acknowledged in 2018</a>. The foundation <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/26/business/gates-foundation-new-trustees.html">disbursed $6.7 billion in 2021</a>, the highest amount to date for a single year.</p>
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<h2>What concerns do you have?</h2>
<p><strong>Campbell</strong>: The top 50 donors in 2021 include only 14 of the many billionaires who have signed the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-window-into-the-hearts-and-minds-of-billionaire-donors-139161">Giving Pledge</a>, a commitment by some of the world’s richest people to “<a href="https://givingpledge.org/">dedicate the majority of their wealth to charitable causes</a>.” To date, more than 230 individuals and couples have taken this step. </p>
<p>Similarly, only 21 of the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/">Forbes 400</a> list of wealthiest Americans made the Philanthropy 50. I would like to know why more of the richest Americans, including some who have committed to giving away their fortunes, weren’t among 2021’s top 50 donors. For the billionaires who have signed the Giving Pledge, it’s worth asking why they are waiting. What benefit do they see in giving later rather than sooner?</p>
<p><strong>Dale</strong>: The $2.65 billion in giving by these wealthy Americans to <a href="https://www.nptrust.org/what-is-a-donor-advised-fund/">donor-advised funds</a> is double 2020 levels and almost 10 times higher than in 2019. Both donor-advised funds – financial accounts that people use to give money to the charities of their choice when they are ready to do so – and <a href="https://learning.candid.org/resources/blog/nonprofit-foundation-ngo-what-do-they-mean/">foundations</a> are intermediaries for giving that offer <a href="https://ips-dc.org/more-evidence-of-warehousing-of-wealth-in-donor-advised-funds/">little transparency and can warehouse funds</a> designated for nonprofits’ use.</p>
<p>Most wealthy donors <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-elon-musk-can-save-big-on-taxes-by-giving-away-a-ton-of-his-tesla-stock-172036">receive tax deductions</a> and other benefits, such as public recognition, when they initially make big gifts. But it can often take years for their money to reach charities.</p>
<p>It’s hard, however, to separately track money being given directly to charities from funds that are reserved for a future charitable use.</p>
<p>As more and more donors, including some of the richest Americans, give to charity through donor-advised funds instead of traditional foundations, <a href="https://www.thenonprofittimes.com/regulation/donor-advised-funds-added-to-new-federal-legislation/">calls for regulating them more tightly</a> are growing louder. </p>
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<h2>What do you expect to see in 2022 and beyond?</h2>
<p><strong>Dale</strong>: Scott has certainly caused some <a href="https://apnews.com/article/death-of-george-floyd-health-education-coronavirus-pandemic-race-and-ethnicity-42ca645d713108d5c852ee3d024b6361">philanthropy shock waves</a> in the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/tech/mackenzie-scott-bezos-donation/index.html">past two years</a>, and it’s still too early to know what effect she is having.</p>
<p>I hope that these donors and the wealthy people not on this list start responding to broader public concerns. The effects of the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/long-covid-labor-market-missing-workers/">COVID-19 pandemic</a>, issues around <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-first-battle-in-the-culture-wars-the-quality-of-diversity-164016">race, ethnicity</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/01/14/some-gender-disparities-widened-in-the-u-s-workforce-during-the-pandemic/">gender</a> and <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/110215/brief-history-income-inequality-united-states.asp">inequality</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-flood-maps-show-us-damage-rising-26-in-next-30-years-due-to-climate-change-alone-and-the-inequity-is-stark-175958">climate change</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-sore-loser-effect-rejecting-election-results-can-destabilize-democracy-and-drive-terrorism-171571">protecting our democracy</a> are not going away. </p>
<p><strong>Johnson</strong>: The fact that social and racial justice were not among the top priorities of the biggest donors in 2021 makes me wonder to what extent the concerns about systemic inequality, driven by events in 2020, will remain a priority for big donors in the future.</p>
<p>Conversations among wealthy givers and major foundations about race, income inequality and the vulnerability the COVID-19 pandemic exposed <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/cf7e59ab-0a50-47a2-9086-d5efa021bc64">have certainly persisted</a>. And Scott is still supporting justice-oriented causes, as a gift announced by its recipient in February 2022 makes clear. Scott gave $133.5 million to Communities in Schools, a nonprofit that meets the <a href="https://www.the74million.org/get-to-know-communities-in-schools-inside-mackenzie-scotts-133-million-donation-to-americas-top-organization-focused-on-preventing-student-dropouts/">academic, economic and other needs of K-12 students</a>. </p>
<p>It remains to be seen to what extent America’s other big donors will follow her lead.</p>
<p><em>The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided funding for The Conversation U.S. and provides funding for The Conversation internationally.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Campbell is vice chair of the Conrad and Virginia Klee Foundation, in Binghamton, New York, which has provided support for the student philanthropy course he teaches. He is also a member of the board for the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth J. Dale has received funding from the Ford Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation via Indiana University and The Giving USA Foundation for her research on philanthropy. The views expressed in this essay are strictly her own and do not reflect policy stances of Seattle University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jasmine McGinnis Johnson is a visiting fellow with the Urban Institute, Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy. Also, Jasmine is a board member of the Association of Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action.</span></em></p>Three scholars weigh in regarding the priorities of these wealthy American donors, who gave less to social service and racial justice groups than in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.David Campbell, Associate Professor of Public Administration, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkElizabeth J. Dale, Associate Professor of Nonprofit Leadership, Seattle UniversityJasmine McGinnis Johnson, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Public Administration, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1729932021-12-01T16:05:15Z2021-12-01T16:05:15ZJack Dorsey’s decision to quit Twitter is not a vote of confidence in future of social media<p>When Jack Dorsey made the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/29/twitter-chief-executive-jack-dorsey">sudden public announcement</a> that he had quit as CEO of Twitter, it was only ever going to have happened in one place – Twitter itself. It reminded me very much of Elon Musk’s entertaining <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/11/elon-musk-sells-some-tesla-stock-but-was-it-really-because-of-twitter-poll">tweet adventures</a>, as Dorsey tossed his <a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/1465347002426867720">resignation letter</a> onto the social media platform that he co-founded. You could imagine him sitting back to soak up the theatre of reaction and speculation that unfolded. </p>
<p>This isn’t Dorsey’s first resignation letter to Twitter – he was <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/5/9457277/jack-dorsey-twitter-ceo-timeline">forced out</a> of the CEO chair in 2008 only to return as executive chairman three years later – and no one can say for sure if it will be the last. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1465347002426867720"}"></div></p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/jack-dorsey-email-twitter-ceo-b1966226.html">the email</a> sent to Twitter staff in which he announced his latest resignation, he thinks the firm should “stand on its own, free of its founder’s influence or direction”. In the ensuing tweet storm after he then put the news on Twitter, he insisted it had been his decision. So what does it all add up to?</p>
<h2>Social media’s midlife crisis</h2>
<p>Dorsey’s move was not entirely unexpected. For more than a year, he has been under <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/3/1/21160375/jack-dorsey-twitter-elliott-management-paul-singer-ceo">intense pressure</a> from activist investors to accelerate Twitter’s development and improve its financial performance. </p>
<p>Wall Street investors have criticised Dorsey’s outside interests, which include running payments giant Square, which he founded during his last Twitter exile, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/jay-z-jack-dorsey-nfts-and-smart-contracts-to-tidal-2021-6">as well as</a> pursuing <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/person/jack-dorsey">futuristic projects</a> centred around <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/12/jack-dorsey-and-jay-z-invest-23-6-million-to-fund-bitcoin-development/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMHZNyM3gUcnvvud5cs6oBWfvc_9QWpnsoVCoGsWztacftrMI0XFCzjjhHLP7BdOaJGoT1B73H9cET6kN6s3QSeSZVNBXXak-86EZAwp4WK_--vpQVu6tNxHP3a4Nb4JYpR2J86hgE6bR-zr0d2z-MFlgqOjkgsCaaUkYHf74kMy">decentralising</a> (meaning removing traditional corporate control from) the internet and finance. Notably, Twitter’s share price shot up with the announcement, only to be pulled down with the rest of the market as it worries about the COVID omicron variant. </p>
<p>I sense a similarity here between Dorsey and other digital moguls such as Jeff Bezos and, once again, Musk. Like Dorsey, Bezos and Musk both run two companies in Amazon/Blue Origin and Tesla/SpaceX respectively, as well as seeking different forms of excitement and adventure, with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/07/business/jeff-bezos-space.html">Bezos’ efforts</a> to reach space orbit and Musk sending a <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16983744/spacex-tesla-falcon-heavy-roadster-orbit-asteroid-belt-elon-musk-mars">Tesla Roadster</a> sports car into space. It all seems to signify mega-tech founders becoming dissatisfied with the monotonous management of their most famous companies and looking for something more. </p>
<p>In the case of Twitter, there is also the social-media dimension. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are increasingly burdened by political controversy and complex issues such as disinformation, privacy breaches and hate speech. <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/27/tech/vijaya-gadde-twitter-risk-takers/index.html">Twitter, for example,</a> became the megaphone of choice for Donald Trump before later banning him, and is having to wrestle with <a href="https://techhq.com/2021/09/data-privacy-backlash-pushes-apple-twitter-to-shield-users-more/">hate speech</a> as a global issue. It is sometimes said that these companies are facing a <a href="https://michailbukin147.medium.com/coping-with-the-social-media-midlife-crisis-7bb67951b686">social media midlife crisis</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435060/original/file-20211201-15-qq52e7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cartoon of Donald Trump on a Twitter bird" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435060/original/file-20211201-15-qq52e7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435060/original/file-20211201-15-qq52e7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435060/original/file-20211201-15-qq52e7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435060/original/file-20211201-15-qq52e7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435060/original/file-20211201-15-qq52e7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435060/original/file-20211201-15-qq52e7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435060/original/file-20211201-15-qq52e7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lest we forget.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/cartoon-july-26-2018-donald-trump-1142678024">Anton Khodakovskiy</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are no simple solutions, so it makes sense that someone like Dorsey might get more thrilled by creating novel things than mending existing ones. It might make sense to hand over control of your empire to others and set off in quest of new horizons. </p>
<p>Dorsey’s reference to “founder ego” in his farewell message to Twitter and staff can only be interpreted as a poke at Mark Zuckerberg, who has shown no signs of relinquishing control over Facebook/Meta. On the contrary, he is looking to further develop the company’s influence by upgrading its operations to a more <a href="https://theconversation.com/metaverse-five-things-to-know-and-what-it-could-mean-for-you-171061">a virtual reality version</a> of the internet known as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/mark-zuckerberg-wants-to-turn-facebook-into-a-metaverse-company-what-does-that-mean-165404">metaverse or 3Dweb</a>. </p>
<p>When Facebook made its historic announcement in October that it was rebranding as Meta, <a href="https://twitter.com/jack">Dorsey’s tweets</a> hinted at his disapproval of Zuckerberg’s decision to stay on. Despite Dorsey insisting this week that he loves Twitter, I suspect he sees difficult times ahead for social media companies and even the concept of these “traditional” platforms.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1464865985471471616"}"></div></p>
<p>In my view, the days are gone when young developers wanted to work for Google, Facebook or Twitter. They now seem more interested in “flipping” NFTs (buying and selling these digital collectibles for a quick profit) and writing applications for the (non-Meta) metaverse. Meanwhile, regulators are <a href="https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/tech-regulation-leads-the-agenda-at-uk-g7-forum/88020130">increasing the heat</a> on Silicon Valley’s old guard over their ethical standards around content and use of data. And if the metaverse is the future, it raises questions about exactly how a microblogging platform with a narrow user-base fits into this new 3D era.</p>
<h2>What next for Jack</h2>
<p>While Dorsey has handed control of Twitter to 37-year-old chief technology officer <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/29/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-is-expected-to-step-down-sources-say.html">Parag Agrawal</a>, he will have more time to focus on Square. The payments firm is valued at nearly US$100 billion (£75 billion) – more than double Twitter – and one of its main focuses has been to move cryptocurrencies into the mainstream. </p>
<p><a href="https://fintechmagazine.com/digital-payments/whats-next-jack-dorsey-will-he-focus-more-fintech">Square has</a> bitcoin on its balance sheet and is planning to launch a decentralised crypto exchange called tbDEX, as well as potentially moving into bitcoin mining (the creation of new bitcoin). Dorsey is also an angel investor in numerous other projects, including <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/jay-z-jack-dorsey-nfts-and-smart-contracts-to-tidal-2021-6">music streaming app</a> Tidal, in which rapper Jay Z is a co-investor. </p>
<p>In many respects, the cryptocurrency landscape has inherited the loose, freewheeling attitude that characterised the early days of social media platforms. Decentralised start-ups like finance platform <a href="https://compound.finance/">Compound</a>, crypto exchange <a href="https://uniswap.org/">Uniswap</a> and currency maker <a href="https://makerdao.com/en">MakerDao</a> are making big profits and becoming more and more popular. </p>
<p>They are dominated by eccentric geniuses such as Uniswap creator <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/12/08/hayden-adams-king-of-the-defi-degens/">Hayden Adams</a> and MakerDao’s <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/runebentsenchristensen?originalSubdomain=dk">Rune Christensen</a>, who have unusual backgrounds and voracious appetites for risk. It will look like an appealing landing site for burned-out tech professionals trying to rekindle their optimism. </p>
<p>As I always say to my students, we are living in an <a href="https://fs.blog/principles-age-acceleration/">age of acceleration</a>, where technology is developing at a rate faster than what any individual can keep up with. To survive this, we need a new way of thinking about technology. </p>
<p>Silicon Valley CEOs like Jack Dorsey were the catalysts for this era, and now they too have to adapt and reinvent the very world they created. Dorsey has the advantage that he has had one foot in this new camp for some time. His departure does not give me a great deal of confidence in traditional social media, but it could give added impetus to crypto and tech start-ups.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172993/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Theo Tzanidis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The social media giant’s co-founder has been distinguishing himself from people like Mark Zuckerberg who seem set to stay in traditional companies.Theo Tzanidis, Senior Lecturer in Digital Marketing, University of the West of ScotlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1655282021-08-03T07:32:32Z2021-08-03T07:32:32ZWhy Jack Dorsey’s Square paid a record $39 billion for Afterpay<p>The A$39 billion (US$29 billion) that Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s digital payments company Square is paying to acquire Australian upstart payments outfit Afterpay is the biggest takeover deal in Australian corporate history. </p>
<p>It surpasses the <a href="https://www.afr.com/property/westfield-strikes-32b-deal-with-unibailrodamco-20171212-h036v6">A$32 billion</a> European commercial real estate giant Unibail-Rodamco agreed to pay for Frank Lowy’s Westfield Corporation in 2017.</p>
<p>The deal marks an extraordinarily successful journey for Afterpay, a company founded in 2014 and listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in May 2016 at $1 a share. </p>
<p>At the close of last week, before this deal was announced, its share price was A$96.66, giving it a market capitalisation of about $27.5 billion.</p>
<p>Square, which at the end of last week had a market cap of about US$123 billion, may pay 1% of its buyout offer in cash, but the rest will be in stock, giving Afterpay shareholders 0.375 shares of Square for each Afterpay ordinary share. </p>
<p>The stock swap means the implied price Square is paying for Afterpay share is about A$126.21 — a premium of about 30.6% to its closing price last Friday. </p>
<p>Why so valuable? </p>
<p>That’s to do with the profitability of the “Buy Now Pay Later” (BNPL) market, in which Afterpay has been a pioneer. The market has become even more profitable due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has accelerated the use of online and cashless payments as well as leaving more people short of money.</p>
<h2>How Afterpay works</h2>
<p>BNPL companies are so-called because they work differently to traditional credit companies. The reason they emerged first in Australia can be attributed both to “<a href="https://stockhead.com.au/primers/asx-bnpl-stocks-guide-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-2/">the inventiveness of Australia’s retail and finance sectors</a>” as well as a quirk in Australia’s credit regulation laws. </p>
<p>Under Australia’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Series/C2009A00134">National Consumer Credit Protection Act</a>, credit is defined (in line with the dictionary definition) as a method of paying for goods with the credit provider making their profit through charging interest.</p>
<p>Afterpay does not charge consumers interest. The majority of its revenue instead comes from merchant fees, charging a commission of 4-6% on the value of the transaction plus 30 cents for every purchased. The rest of its revenue comes from charging late fees when customers fail to make repayments on time. </p>
<p>Afterpay’s standard repayment plan is four equal instalments every fortnight over two months. A missed payment incurs an initial $10 penalty. If you still have an outstanding balance after one week a further $7 is charged. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414278/original/file-20210803-13-1qhrzil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414278/original/file-20210803-13-1qhrzil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414278/original/file-20210803-13-1qhrzil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414278/original/file-20210803-13-1qhrzil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414278/original/file-20210803-13-1qhrzil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414278/original/file-20210803-13-1qhrzil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414278/original/file-20210803-13-1qhrzil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Afterpay has made it very easy to buy now, pay later. It charges merchants a commission on the transaction as well as late fees if customers miss their scheduled payments.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sam Bianchini/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It could be argued these late fees are the equivalent of charging interest — and a hefty interest payment at that. One $10 late fee on a debt of $150 translates to an effective interest charge of 6.67% per fortnight. </p>
<p>But because they don’t explicitly charge interest, Afterpay and other BNPL companies are not covered by credit laws. </p>
<p>This has led to concerns about BNPL providers profiting at the expense of the most financially vulnerable consumers. In 2018 the <a href="https://download.asic.gov.au/media/4957540/rep600-published-07-dec-2018.pdf">Australian Securities and Investments Commission</a> called for reform to close the legal loophole. It wanted BNPL providers to operate under the same rules as credit providers — including the same responsible lending obligations to perform a credit check and verify that customers could afford to take on the debt. </p>
<p>However, this has not happened. A Senate inquiry <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-03/buy-now-pay-later-regulation-fintech-senate-inquiry/12614068">decided last year</a> no regulation was necessary, instead endorsing self-regulation. Afterpay and its rivals signed a voluntary <a href="https://www.choice.com.au/money/credit-cards-and-loans/personal-loans/articles/does-buy-now-pay-later-need-tighter-regulation">code of conduct</a> earlier this year. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-difference-between-credit-and-debt-how-afterpay-and-other-bnpl-providers-skirt-consumer-laws-113464">What's the difference between credit and debt? How Afterpay and other 'BNPL' providers skirt consumer laws</a>
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<h2>Booming profits</h2>
<p>Despite these concerns, the ease of Afterpay’s technology has made it a very convenient way to buy things. Its logo is becoming ubiquitous. Over the year to June 30 the number of merchants offering it as a payment option increased by 77% to 98,200, and number of customers by 63% to 16 million.</p>
<p>In the first six months of 2021, Afterpay’s gross profit was US$284 million — about 150% more than the US$113 million profit it booked in the six months prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (July-December 2019). </p>
<p>With the BNPL market proving to be so lucrative, credit card companies, banks and tech companies have been looking to muscle in. Visa announced its BNPL plans <a href="https://www.smartcompany.com.au/finance/afterpay-visa-bnpl/">in July 2019</a>, and it is just now <a href="https://www.paymentsdive.com/news/visa-rolls-out-bnpl-for-merchants/603257/">rolling out its technology</a> to merchants. Commonwealth Bank of Australia is also in the process of establishing its “<a href="https://mozo.com.au/buy-now-pay-later/articles/commbank-introduces-steppay-new-buy-now-pay-later-service-launching-soon">StepPay</a>” offering. Paypal launched its “<a href="https://newsroom.au.paypal-corp.com/PayPal_launches_Australias_only_no-fee_buy_now_pay_later_offering_for_consumers,_PayPal_Pay_in_4">Pay in 4</a>” service last month. Apple last month also announced <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-13/apple-goldman-plan-buy-now-pay-later-service-to-rival-paypal">its own plans</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-know-if-your-online-shopping-habit-is-a-problem-and-what-to-do-if-it-is-143969">How to know if your online shopping habit is a problem — and what to do if it is</a>
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<p>Square, co-founded by Dorsey and Jim McKelvey in 2009, has gone the simpler route by buying the pioneer in the market.</p>
<p>Afterpay’s board has unanimously recommended shareholders accept the offer. Both Afterpay and Square shareholders still need to approve the deal. So too does Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, under Australia’s foreign investment laws. </p>
<p>But this is all likely to be a formality. It’s an offer too good to refuse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165528/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the first six months of 2021, Afterpay’s gross profit was US$284 million — about 150% more than the US$113 million profit it booked in the six months before the pandemic.Lien Duong, Senior Lecturer in School Accounting of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Curtin UniversitySonny Pham, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1641462021-07-08T22:24:59Z2021-07-08T22:24:59ZTrump can’t beat Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in court – but the fight might be worth more than a win<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410457/original/file-20210708-15-xqq91c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C7%2C4753%2C3181&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump at a press conference to announce a class action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, Google and their CEOs. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-u-s-president-donald-trump-speaks-during-a-press-news-photo/1327493802?adppopup=true">Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From <a href="https://time.com/4596770/donald-trump-reality-tv/">condo salesman to reality TV host to leader of the free world, Donald Trump</a> has occupied several lifetimes’ worth of identities over a remarkable career of reinventions. Even so, the billionaire mogul’s latest metamorphosis – <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-is-suing-facebook-twitter-google-claiming-bias-2021-07-07/">into a consumer-rights plaintiff seeking to regulate big business</a> – is a peculiar one.</p>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/lawsuits-business-government-and-politics-c7e26858dcb553f92d98706d12ad510c">With a volley of lawsuits</a> against the operators of <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.595800/gov.uscourts.flsd.595800.1.0_1.pdf">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.595801/gov.uscourts.flsd.595801.1.0.pdf">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.595803/gov.uscourts.flsd.595803.1.0.pdf">YouTube</a>, former President Trump is asking the courts to do what <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-a-businessman-trump-mixed-pragmatism-and-protest-in-dealing-with-regulators-1481198402">tycoon Trump once would have denounced</a>: tell some of America’s most powerful corporations that they have no choice who they do business with. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.jou.ufl.edu/staff/frank-lomonte/">As a First Amendment and media law scholar</a>, I believe the former president knows he can’t win in court. Here’s why – and why even his most ardent supporters don’t really want him to. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410458/original/file-20210708-21-1yaw0un.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Screenshot of the Voice of America website headline, " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410458/original/file-20210708-21-1yaw0un.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410458/original/file-20210708-21-1yaw0un.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410458/original/file-20210708-21-1yaw0un.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410458/original/file-20210708-21-1yaw0un.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410458/original/file-20210708-21-1yaw0un.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410458/original/file-20210708-21-1yaw0un.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410458/original/file-20210708-21-1yaw0un.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When Twitter banned Trump, it made headlines.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.voanews.com/usa/twitter-bans-trump-others-citing-risk-violent-incitement">Screenshot, Voice of America website</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Content moderation rules</h2>
<p>After the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/us/jan-6-capitol-attack-takeaways.html">Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol</a> by rioters bent on preventing Congress from certifying President Biden’s electoral win, all of the major social platforms – Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – <a href="https://www.axios.com/platforms-social-media-ban-restrict-trump-d9e44f3c-8366-4ba9-a8a1-7f3114f920f1.html">pulled the plug on Trump’s accounts</a>. The companies cited internal rules about misuse of their platforms to spread misinformation and incite violence.</p>
<p>Trump’s lawsuit barrage seeks not just to overturn his own bans but to invalidate a 1996 federal statute, <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230">Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act</a>, that entitles website operators to choose who and what appears on their pages without fear of liability. His attorneys are arguing – creatively, but I believe without much legal foundation – that the Communications Decency Act is unconstitutional in that Congress has given platforms too much speech-policing power.</p>
<p>Section 230 has been called the law that “<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/nsu-section-230">created the internet</a>,” as it enables anyone who operates or uses a website – not, as Trump claims, only social media behemoths – to disavow responsibility for what outsiders come onto the site and say. </p>
<p>The law does enable YouTube to deactivate videos, or entire accounts, without assuming “ownership” of anything libelous that remains viewable. But it also allows the proprietor of a small-town news site to entertain reader comments without being considered the “publisher” of – and thus liable for – every scurrilous statement that ends up in the comments section.</p>
<p>Social networks have enforced their “content moderation” rules spottily and without much transparency. That’s a bad business practice, and it’s arguably unfair. But the Constitution doesn’t offer a remedy for all of life’s adversities. It certainly doesn’t offer one for Donald Trump here.</p>
<h2>Social media isn’t government</h2>
<p>Court after court has rejected the argument that because social networks are widely considered – <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=285661631352488303&q=packingham+v+north+carolina&hl=en&as_sdt=40006">in the Supreme Court’s words</a> – “the modern public square,” speakers are entitled to demand access to their platforms just as they are entitled to use a physical public square. That’s not how the First Amendment works. </p>
<p>The protections of the First Amendment are triggered when a public agency exercises governmental power to restrict people’s speech – <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45650/1">what is known as “state action.”</a> On rare occasions, private organizations can be considered “governmental” – for instance, when a private hospital or university is given police power to make arrests on its premises. </p>
<p>But operating a video-sharing platform is not a “governmental” function – and judges have said so, <a href="https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/2019/08/deplatformed-social-media-censorship-and-the-first-amendment/">unanimously</a>.</p>
<p>Conservatives, including Trump, cannot possibly want private businesses to be governed by the same constitutional standards that apply to cities and counties. If courts started applying the Bill of Rights to Walmart or McDonald’s just because they are large and powerful entities that control a lot of property, those establishments would be forced to welcome even the most disagreeable speakers – let’s say, a diner wearing a “F*** Trump” T-shirt – no matter how many offended customers complain. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410461/original/file-20210708-27-2i3i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, a man with bright blue eyes, brown hair and a wiry hipster beard, speaking on a monitor." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410461/original/file-20210708-27-2i3i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410461/original/file-20210708-27-2i3i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410461/original/file-20210708-27-2i3i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410461/original/file-20210708-27-2i3i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410461/original/file-20210708-27-2i3i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410461/original/file-20210708-27-2i3i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410461/original/file-20210708-27-2i3i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and other Big Tech leaders testified virtually at a congressional hearing in October 2020 regarding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which guarantees that tech companies cannot be sued for content on their platforms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/of-twitter-jack-dorsey-appears-on-a-monitor-as-he-testifies-news-photo/1229328534?adppopup=true">Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Upending conservative gospel</h2>
<p>For decades, conservatives have <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112711410">fought</a> – quite hard and quite successfully <a href="https://reason.com/video/2019/09/05/corporations-and-the-first-amendment-free-speech-rules-episode-6/">in court</a> – to establish that corporations have First Amendment rights equivalent to those of living, breathing people. That includes the corporations operating social media channels. </p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003008828-9/legal-landscape-frank-lomonte">essay about democracy in the social media age</a>, I explain how the Communications Decency Act has evolved into the near-impenetrable liability shield that it is today. </p>
<p>In the essay, I describe how the proprietor of a hotel or tavern isn’t liable for harm caused by customers visiting the establishment – unless the customer has a known history of dangerousness that the proprietor chooses to ignore. That might offer a split-the-difference path for addressing the worst trolling behavior on social media by repeat bad actors – but, to be clear, it’s not the law today. </p>
<p>Today, the law unmistakably entitles the Twitters of the world to do just about anything with their customers’ posts: take them down, leave them up, add warnings or modifiers. If users are aggrieved by the way they’re treated, they can do exactly what they’d do in the offline world: Take their business somewhere else. </p>
<p>[<em>Understand key political developments, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s politics newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Old news</h2>
<p>The Supreme Court already decisively dealt with this issue a half-century ago, when newspapers and television stations held power over political discourse comparable to that of Facebook and Twitter today. In the case, Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1973/73-797">the justices rejected</a> a state legislative candidate’s insistence that he was entitled to space in the local newspaper to respond to criticism in two editorial columns. </p>
<p>While the justices acknowledged that a big-city newspaper might have a near-monopoly over information about local elections – sound familiar? – they agreed that the First Amendment would not tolerate commandeering the presses of a private publisher in the interest of government-enforced “fairness.”</p>
<p>A federal judge in Florida, relying on the Tornillo case, just <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/federal-judge-rules-florida-social-media-law-likely-violates-free-speech-2021-07-01/">ordered</a> the state not to enforce a newly enacted “anti-deplatforming” law enabling any Florida political candidate whose social media posts are hidden, modified or deactivated to sue the platform. The judge concluded that the law violates the First Amendment rights of the platforms by (for example) compelling platforms to let candidates post anything they want, without moderation. “Balancing the exchange of ideas among private speakers,” the judge wrote, “is not a legitimate governmental interest.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410465/original/file-20210708-23-1mvvz0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The top of the U.S. Supreme Court building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410465/original/file-20210708-23-1mvvz0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410465/original/file-20210708-23-1mvvz0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410465/original/file-20210708-23-1mvvz0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410465/original/file-20210708-23-1mvvz0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410465/original/file-20210708-23-1mvvz0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410465/original/file-20210708-23-1mvvz0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410465/original/file-20210708-23-1mvvz0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">‘The Supreme Court,’ writes the author, ‘already decisively dealt with this issue a half-century ago, when newspapers and television stations held power over political discourse comparable to that of Facebook and Twitter today.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SupremeCourtVirginaElections/5706504e66dc42a79040fa3de4ea5e25/photo?Query=U.S.%20Supreme%20Court%20building&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=749&currentItemNo=513">AP Photo/Patrick Semansky</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>No one involved with this case could be serious about winning in federal court. But that is not the “court” to which the former president is playing. </p>
<p>Tilting at Silicon Valley appeals directly to Trump’s populist followers, many of whom <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07/twitter-is-not-shadow-banning-republicans.html">probably suspect</a> that their own clever tweets failed to go viral only because the system is rigged against them. </p>
<p>But even if, as experts <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-sues-facebook-google-twitter-class-action-lawsuits-sure-fail-ncna1273289">suggest</a>, Trump’s case is destined to fail, dismissal would be yet another headline and fundraising hook, along the lines of, “You knew those socialist judges were in Hillary’s pocket.” And even if Trump were ordered to pay Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s attorney fees, they’d have to queue up behind <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-business-plan-left-a-trail-of-unpaid-bills-1465504454">decades’ worth</a> of unpaid Trump creditors. </p>
<p>As Trump would tweet, if given the chance: “So much winning!”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank LoMonte does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Former President Trump is asking the courts to do what tycoon Trump once would have denounced: tell some of America’s most powerful corporations that they have no choice who they do business with.Frank LoMonte, Director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1544662021-02-09T16:01:13Z2021-02-09T16:01:13ZWhat the $25 billion the biggest US donors gave in 2020 says about high-dollar charity today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383115/original/file-20210208-17-1uft0gw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C66%2C3637%2C2166&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott, seen here before they divorced in 2019, were the top two U.S. charitable donors the following year. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-and-his-wife-mackenzie-bezos-arrive-news-photo/950770310">Jorg Carstensen/dpa/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: According to <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/package/the-new-focus-of-2020s-top-donors?cid=theconversation">The Chronicle of Philanthropy</a>, the top 50 Americans who gave the most to charity in 2020 committed to giving a total of US$24.7 billion to hospitals, homeless shelters, universities, museums and more – a boost of roughly 54% from 2019 levels. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VYsdAEIAAAAJ&hl=en">David Campbell</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=tu70lmIAAAAJ">Elizabeth Dale</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=uqv9NgwAAAAJ">Jasmine McGinnis Johnson</a>, three scholars of philanthropy, assess what these gifts mean, the possible motivations behind them and what they hope to see in the future in terms of charitable giving in the United States.</em></p>
<h2>What trends stand out?</h2>
<p><strong>Campbell:</strong> Pandemic. Pandemic. Pandemic. The share of giving that went to <a href="https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.categories&categoryid=6">social service nonprofits</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-food-banks-help-americans-who-have-trouble-getting-enough-to-eat-148150">food banks</a> and homelessness assistance groups rose sharply. At the same time, performing arts organizations, largely shut down as a result of the pandemic and <a href="https://www.americantheatre.org/2020/09/30/study-shows-steep-revenue-plunge-for-theatres-some-hope-for-2021/">starved of revenue from ticket sales</a>, received more support from big donors in 2020 than in 2019, with charitable gifts and pledges to them increasing to $65 million from $51 million.</p>
<p><strong>McGinnis Johnson:</strong> Likewise, Racial justice. Racial justice. Racial justice.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/05/michael-jordans-brand-donates-100-million-to-anti-racist-groups.html">basketball legend Michael Jordan</a> declared that he would personally give at least $50 million to racial equity and education causes over the next decade, with his footwear and clothing company kicking in another $50 million. Also, Netflix CEO <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/netflix-s-reed-hastings-patty-quillin-donate-120m-black-education-n1231267">Reed Hastings and his wife Patty Quillan</a> gave a total of $120 million divided into three equal gifts to <a href="https://uncf.org/news/patty-quillin-and-reed-hastings-give-120-million-to-support-historically-black-colleges-and-universities">Morehouse College, Spelman College and UNCF</a> – the group previously called United Negro College Fund that pays for students to attend <a href="https://theundefeated.com/features/how-hbcus-are-using-more-than-250-million-in-donations/">historically black colleges and universities</a>. Neither Jordan nor <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/netflix-s-reed-hastings-patty-quillin-donate-120m-black-education-n1231267">Hastings and Quillan</a>, who said their increased awareness about the country’s racial injustices and the deaths of Black people in police custody inspired them to give, made the <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/billion-dollar-giving-streak-shows-new-sense-of-urgency-among-50-top-donors/">Chronicle’s list of top donors in 2019</a>.</p>
<p>These and other unusually large <a href="https://theconversation.com/racial-justice-giving-is-booming-4-trends-145526">gifts taking aim at racial injustice</a>, and other forms of social injustice (not counting HBCU donations), totaled $66 million in 2020. But I had anticipated that there would be even more of this giving by the biggest donors.</p>
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<p><strong>Dale:</strong> In particular, <a href="https://theconversation.com/5-ways-mackenzie-scotts-5-8-billion-commitment-to-social-and-economic-justice-is-a-model-for-other-donors-152206">MacKenzie Scott</a> – Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife – made <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/01/04/mackenzie-scott-surprises-hbcus-tribal-colleges-and-community-colleges-multimillion">many gifts to HBCUs</a>. These donations included $50 million for Prairie View A&M University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and Morgan State University. In addition to racial justice, <a href="https://theconversation.com/5-takeaways-from-mackenzie-scotts-1-7-billion-in-support-for-social-justice-causes-143659">her philanthropy</a> has raised the profile of causes like civic engagement, community development and the need to address the <a href="https://ripmedicaldebt.org/press-release/gift-from-philanthropist-mackenzie-scott/">medical debt crisis</a> in the U.S. Scott was the second-largest donor for the year, after Bezos. Combined, their commitments totaled nearly $16 billion. Neither made the top 50 in 2019.</p>
<p>Until now, the ultra-rich haven’t typically supported causes like these. Instead, extremely wealthy donors have historically been more inclined to fund <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-1-gives-more-money-to-arts-culture-and-sports-than-to-fighting-climate-change-survey-of-billionaires-finds-2020-01-23">higher education and health care</a>, largely with big donations to elite universities, hospitals and arts institutions like museums and operas.</p>
<p>The other aspect that strikes me is the “who” part of the list. There are many new faces: Eight of the 20 top donors didn’t make an appearance on the <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/the-philanthropy-50/?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in#id=table_2019">Philanthropy 50 list for their 2019 giving</a>. </p>
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<h2>What concerns do you have?</h2>
<p><strong>McGinnis Johnson:</strong> A total of about $14 billion of this giving went to foundations led by the givers themselves and <a href="https://learning.candid.org/resources/knowledge-base/donor-advised-funds">donor-advised funds</a>, which work somewhat like foundations in that donors set money aside for charity before they actually give those funds to nonprofits. When wealthy people set aside money this way, they receive tax benefits before giving those funds. In a troubling development, <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/foundations-are-sending-more-dollars-to-donor-advised-funds-chronicle-analysis-finds">some foundations</a> have begun to put some of their disbursed money, which was already designated for charity, into donor-advised funds rather than addressing today’s many urgent needs, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/18-million-us-children-are-at-risk-of-hunger-how-is-the-problem-being-addressed-and-what-more-can-be-done-151821">alleviating hunger</a> and <a href="https://fox17.com/news/nation-world/eviction-moratorium-gave-renters-relief-but-property-owners-face-billions-in-unpaid-rent">staving off evictions</a> amid a major economic crisis.</p>
<p><strong>Dale:</strong> This list reminds me of the limits of philanthropy, especially with a problem as widespread as the COVID-19 pandemic. Even if you add all of the social service gifts together, including donations to food banks, efforts to help the homeless and gifts to pay off medical debt, it adds up to only about $700 million. Compared to the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/biden-lays-out-1-9-trillion-covid-19-relief-package-n1254334">trillions of dollars in relief</a> the government is providing <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/05/15/854774681/congress-has-approved-3-trillion-for-coronavirus-relief-so-far-heres-a-breakdown">individuals and small businesses</a> for economic problems that <a href="https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2020/dec/covid-19-relief-bill-addresses-key-ppp-issues.html">began in 2020</a>, you can see that philanthropy from the very wealthiest Americans doesn’t come close to meeting all of the nation’s needs.</p>
<p>One possible way Congress could encourage more donations is by increasing the share of assets that foundations must give away every year. A <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-19/wealthy-donors-press-congress-to-require-higher-giving-in-crisis">coalition of wealthy donors</a> including Walt Disney Co. heiress <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-are-we-waiting-for-multimillionaires-want-the-new-stimulus-bill-to-force-other-rich-people-to-give-more-money-to-charity-2020-07-22">Abigail Disney</a> and at least two members of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pritzker-family">Pritzker family</a> – heirs to the Hyatt fortune – supports this change.</p>
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<h2>What do you expect to see in 2021 and beyond?</h2>
<p><strong>McGinnis Johnson:</strong> I think that major gifts in support of racial and social justice causes may continue. I also expect to see the emergence of new donors spurred on by these crises who can give in new and different ways. And I hope that more wealthy donors begin to pay more attention to leadership, by supporting <a href="https://cep.org/a-new-wave-of-philanthropy-to-support-black-led-organizations/">organizations led by people of color</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Campbell:</strong> Donors like <a href="https://mackenzie-scott.medium.com/116-organizations-driving-change-67354c6d733d">MacKenzie Scott</a> and <a href="https://medium.com/@susansandlerfund/my-cancer-milestone-and-my-philanthropic-legacy-a338d03bfc94">Susan Sandler</a> – the heir to a fortune made in the home-mortgage business – and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/01/robin-hood-foundation-launches-fund-to-help-groups-run-by-people-of-color.html">some foundations</a> are going out of their way to invest in people, places and organizations that have long been ignored or marginalized.</p>
<p>Also, their public statements about their giving, along with Twitter CEO <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1-eGxq2mMoEGwgSpNVL5j2sa6ToojZUZ-Zun8h2oBAR4/htmlview">Jack Dorsey’s spreadsheet listing his donations</a>, have raised the bar for transparency in philanthropy.</p>
<p>I believe these new approaches can engage the public in an ongoing <a href="https://theconversation.com/my-students-see-giving-money-away-as-a-good-thing-but-theyre-getting-leery-of-billionaire-donors-116627">debate about the best way to use charitable dollars</a> to build a better world. The question is, will other wealthy donors follow their lead?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Campbell is vice chair of the Conrad and Virginia Klee Foundation in Binghamton, New York. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth J. Dale has received funding from the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation via Indiana University and The Giving USA Foundation for her research on philanthropy. The views expressed in this essay are strictly my own and do not reflect policy stances of Seattle University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jasmine McGinnis Johnson is a Visiting Fellow at Urban Institute, the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy.</span></em></p>While support for social services and historically black colleges and universities rose sharply, these donors spent a tiny fraction of what the government distributed to people who needed help.David Campbell, Associate Professor of Public Administration, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkElizabeth J. Dale, Assistant Professor of Nonprofit Leadership, Seattle UniversityJasmine McGinnis Johnson, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Public Administration, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1482962020-10-19T14:40:17Z2020-10-19T14:40:17ZThe ‘crazy uncle’ in the Oval Office: how Donald Trump’s social media use changed US politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364231/original/file-20201019-21-1evwx9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C6%2C3990%2C2652&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Real' Donald Trump's Twitter feed delivers a great deal of unreality.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Casimiro PT via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie looks to have delivered one of the most memorable lines of the US 2020 election campaign at Donald Trump’s town hall meeting on October 15. Challenging one of the US president’s more outlandish recent social media interventions – when he retweeted a <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/conspiracy-theory-baselessly-claims-biden-had-navy-seals-killed/">conspiracy theory</a> alleging that Osama bin Laden is still alive and that Joe Biden and Barack Obama “may have had Seal Team 6 killed” – she shot him down in flames, saying: “You’re not, like, someone’s crazy uncle who can just retweet whatever.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1316900018566156293"}"></div></p>
<p>In a reality-TV presidential campaign it was a moment that took the theatrics up another notch, but one that lifts the curtain on a mix of happenstance and strategy that has ensured Trump has been front and centre of the news agenda since the moment he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower back in 2015 to declare his presidential candidacy. </p>
<p>Ever since then, Trump has played fast and loose with the truth. The Washington Post tracks the president’s misleading claims and had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?utm_term=.27babcd5e58c&itid=lk_inline_manual_2&itid=lk_inline_manual_2">clocked up more than 20,000</a> from his inauguration on January 20 2016 to July 9 2020. Trump is uniquely unencumbered by self-doubt, morals, or any kind of filter that might deflect the spotlight from himself.</p>
<p>Trump launched his political career in the age of social media, something I <a href="https://research.reading.ac.uk/american-history-politics/the-trump-presidency-from-campaign-trail-to-world-stage/">wrote about</a> in The Trump Presidency: From Campaign Trail to World Stage, noting his desire for short-term “winning” moments so often amplified beyond their policy value through social media. </p>
<p>Leveraging the celebrity status of his long television career on mainstream network NBC’s The Apprentice, he arrived at the perfect moment to align political communication with the hit-hungry platforms of social media moguls Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and Jack Dorsey at Twitter. Both platforms operate in a world where algorithms surface information likely to go viral. They platforms were (and remain) <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/esade/2020/02/10/should-social-media-platforms-be-regulated/#a41c30f33703">woefully underregulated</a> and, taken together, both have become dangerous homes for at best, ridiculous alternative narratives, and at worst, dangerous and damaging lies.</p>
<h2>Fake news president</h2>
<p>Trump is the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-46175024">fake news president</a>. He has set the news narrative on an almost daily basis by saying something outrageous and then sitting back and watching his opponents, the media – and indeed all of America – dissect whatever brag, lie or slander he’s launched that day. Often he throws half a dozen tweets out knowing one will stick (<a href="https://www.tweetbinder.com/blog/trump-twitter/">he averages over 30 tweets a day</a>). Their purpose is to deflect from whatever real challenges he faces in his presidency.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1316893847281164289"}"></div></p>
<p>Sometimes all that is apparent is his lack of the knowledge one might expect from a president, as in describing Prince Charles as the “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-48622001">Prince of Whales</a>”. Sometimes it’s how unpleasant he can be when he stoops to very personal attacks – such as his long-running sniping at Senator John McCain, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/us/politics/trump-john-mccain.html">even after McCain died</a>. And sometimes he uses social media to enable extremists – as on July 1 2020 when he <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53212685">retweeted a video</a> of his supporters yelling “white power”, and failed to immediately delete it despite being called out from all sides. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, Facebook and Twitter have been slow to censor even Trump’s most egregious lies. These platforms are in business not as arbiters of decency and truth, but to make money, as much as they can and from as many of us as possible. </p>
<p>They aim to be ubiquitous, and having Trump surf their wave has enhanced their reach exponentially – Twitter by the president’s direct and daily use of the platform, and Facebook by being the chief means for seeding the conversations that will ultimately influence Americans to lend either Trump or Biden their vote in November.</p>
<h2>Platforms of anger</h2>
<p>I’m currently engaged in research as to how, since 2016, both platforms have become platforms of anger, building bubbles and echo chambers that swell and burst as every new political play gains traction. And, as MIT showed in its <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2018/study-twitter-false-news-travels-faster-true-stories-0308">2018 study</a>, fake news travels much faster than the truth, gaining currency far quicker and travelling much further than anything as dull as a fact. With a plodding Biden campaign well ahead in the polls, expect the Trump campaign to step up the alternative news agenda exponentially to disrupt the Biden narrative and sow the seeds of doubt in voters’ minds.</p>
<p>We’re used to “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/trump-coronavirus-positive-october-surprise-2020-election-b747228.html">October surprises</a>” in US presidential races. Some – like the Comey investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails back in 2016 – can derail a candidate, while others fall flat. That’s what appears to be happening with the Republicans’ attempt to seed a story through the New York Post about Joe Biden’s son Hunter. As a story it hit every GOP voter button, supposed Biden hypocrisy and kleptocracy – and at the hands of the Ukrainians and Chinese too. </p>
<p>The story was dubious, to the extent that <a href="https://choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org/2020/10/14/923766097/facebook-and-twitter-limit-sharing-new-york-post-story-about-joe-biden">both Facebook and Twitter</a> stepped in to block its circulation. Republicans cried foul, but the story’s provenance was questionable, appearing to emanate from Trump lawyer and surrogate Rudy Giuliani and former chief strategist Steve Bannon. But without clear proof that the story is a hoax, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/technology/twitter-new-york-post.html">Twitter has now back-tracked</a> on its decision. </p>
<p>So does this intervention mark a serious and long-lasting change in policy for Facebook and Twitter? Unlikely. They <em>have</em> taken steps to police both content and content providers on their platforms in recent months, but even Facebook’s much publicised <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/us/politics/facebook-russia-networks.html">taking down</a> of 19 Russian-linked accounts in September was merely frittering around the edges. </p>
<p>The power of these platforms exceeds the founders’ ability to police them – even if they wanted to. And while both platforms make vast amounts of money through advertising and data licensing, they are unlikely to turn off the kind of content that draws users back addictively and offers such rich bounty for advertisers. Ultimately, self-regulation will be ineffectual - and even <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2019/04/22/history-tells-us-social-media-regulation-is-inevitable/#44913f2e21be">formal regulation</a> may prove unenforceable in a nation so wedded to the first amendment’s right of free speech.</p>
<p>Frankly, that works perfectly well for whoever takes the White House on November 3. The courts have offered little by way of regulation in the social media era. Expect little more in future, whoever wins. The “crazy uncle” may depart the stage, but social media as <em>the</em> tool of political communication is just getting started.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Shanahan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Will Facebook and Twitter be able to counter the tsunami of misinformation that could affect the election result? It’s unlikely.Mark Shanahan, Associate Professor and Head of Department for Politics & IR, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1429482020-07-17T21:00:20Z2020-07-17T21:00:20ZTwitter hack exposes broader threat to democracy and society<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348184/original/file-20200717-29-ua0h8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=89%2C89%2C4166%2C2673&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Twitter mediates so much in the public sphere that weak points at the company are weak points in society.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/twitter-logo-is-seen-on-a-computer-screen-in-this-photo-news-photo/868675394?adppopup=true"> NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In case 2020 wasn’t dystopian enough, <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/07/whos-behind-wednesdays-epic-twitter-hack/">hackers on July 15 hijacked the Twitter accounts</a> of former President Barack Obama, presidential hopeful Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian and Apple, among others. Each hijacked account posted a similar fake message. The high-profile individual or company wanted to philanthropically give back to the community during COVID-19 and would double any donations made to a bitcoin wallet, identical messages said. The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53425822">donations followed</a>. </p>
<p>The hack on the surface may appear to be a run-of-the-mill financial scam. But the breach has chilling implications for democracy.</p>
<h2>Serious political implications</h2>
<p>As a scholar of internet governance and infrastructure, I see the underlying cybercrimes of this incident, such as hacking accounts and financial fraud, as far less concerning than the society-wide political implications. Social media – and Twitter in particular – is now the public sphere. Using a hijacked account, it would be simple to wreak economic damage, start a national security crisis or create a social panic.</p>
<p>Consider some of the potential threats to society posed by the takeover of technology infrastructure.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Market stability. Coordinated rogue tweets from the accounts of Apple, Facebook, Google, Netflix and Microsoft could easily crash the stock market, at least temporarily, eroding confidence in markets.</p></li>
<li><p>Societal panic. A false warning about an impending terrorist attack from a major media company account could create a dangerous public panic.</p></li>
<li><p>National security. Twitter is the platform of choice for President Donald Trump. A foreign adversary hijacking his account and announcing a nuclear strike on North Korea could be catastrophic.</p></li>
<li><p>Democracy. Hijacked accounts could sow well-timed political disinformation that sways or seeks to delegitimize the 2020 presidential election.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>As such, what happened is not about financial crime. It is a serious threat to us all.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Screen shot of Joe Biden's hacked account." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screen shot of Joe Biden’s hacked account.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter via the New York Times</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Politicians are rightly calling for hearings and investigations. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform ranking member, Kentucky Republican James Comer, <a href="https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Letter-to-J.-Dorsey-re-Twitter-hack-071620.pdf">issued a letter demanding answers from Twitter</a> CEO Jack Dorsey about what happened. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo <a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-directs-state-conduct-full-investigation-twitter-hack">ordered a full investigation of the hack</a>, warning that “Foreign interference remains a grave threat to our democracy.” </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/16/21327701/fbi-twitter-hack-attack-investigation-national-security-risk-cybersecurity">FBI is investigating</a> the incident.</p>
<h2>Social engineering</h2>
<p>On the day of the attack, Dorsey <a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/1283571658339397632">tweeted</a>, “Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened.” But <a href="https://threatpost.com/the-great-twitter-hack-what-we-know-what-we-dont/157538/">what did happen</a>?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1283571658339397632"}"></div></p>
<p>Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1283957911841054721">disclosed that approximately 130 accounts</a> were affected and that “attackers were able to gain control of the accounts and then send Tweets from those accounts.” The affected accounts seemed to be “verified accounts” with the blue check mark meant to authenticate the identities of high-profile public figures. </p>
<p>Because these accounts are potential hacking targets, Twitter recommends <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/twitter-verified-accounts">additional security</a> such as having a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-age-of-hacking-brings-a-return-to-the-physical-key-73094">second log-in verification check</a>, and requiring personal information such as a phone number to reset a password.</p>
<p>How were the accounts taken over? There are two general possibilities: Either hackers gained the login credentials, including passwords, or gained access to systems from inside the company. Twitter has, as of this writing, <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1283591846464233474">described the attack</a> as having “successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.” In other words, it may have originated inside Twitter’s secure system.</p>
<p>But this explanation raises more questions. Are Twitter employees (or hackers) with unauthorized access to “internal systems” actually able to tweet from the account of someone like Joe Biden? Another major question is whether the hackers also were able to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/16/twitter-passwords-hack-direct-messages/">read the private direct messages in each of these accounts</a>.</p>
<p>To begin to regain trust, Twitter will have to clarify what happened and explain what the company will do to mitigate such an attack in the future.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="person working at computer screens" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Outsiders were apparently able to take over Twitter accounts of high-profile individuals by ‘social engineering,’ which allowed them to convince Twitter employees to provide access to its systems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/rear-view-of-female-computer-hacker-coding-at-desk-royalty-free-image/1159379067?adppopup=true">Maskot via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In terms of the tactics used, <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1283591846464233474">Twitter described the incident</a> as having used social engineering, a term that refers to a cyberattack exploiting some human action. Examples include phishing attacks that prompt someone to click on a malicious link in an email or divulge a password or personal information. These techniques date back decades, such as the infamous <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/01/tech/iloveyou-virus-computer-security-intl-hnk/index.html">I Love You attack of 2000</a>, when emails with the subject line “I Love You” prompted people to download a virus-infected file, creating massive economic damage to companies. It can be a <a href="https://www.wired.com/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/">range of activities</a> aimed at deceiving people into providing information useful to another party, such as a hacker trying to penetrate a company’s network.</p>
<p>The essential feature of a social engineering attack is that a human being is prompted to make an error in judgment. If anyone ever thought an individual has no agency in cybersecurity, simply recall the Democratic National Committee <a href="https://theconversation.com/spearphishing-roiled-the-presidential-campaign-heres-how-to-protect-yourself-68274">email data breach</a> in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. That incident in part originated via a phishing attack that tricked someone <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/18/mueller-clinton-arizona-hack/">into disclosing email credentials</a>. Cybersecurity is a problem of human psychology and cyberliteracy as well as a complex technical area. Not only do Twitter employees appear to be victims of social engineering, according to the initial explanation, but so too were those people who were tricked into giving bitcoin donations. </p>
<h2>Not just a tech company problem</h2>
<p>Cybersecurity is the great human rights issue of our time simply because the security of everything in our society – from elections to health care to the economy – is dependent upon the security of the digital world. Private companies now mediate the public sphere and so they bear great responsibility for this security. From the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/30/774749376/facebook-pays-643-000-fine-for-role-in-cambridge-analytica-scandal">Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal</a> to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/technology/yahoo-hack-3-billion-users.html">Yahoo! data breach</a>, tech companies have had trust problems. At the same time, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/societys-dependence-on-the-internet-5-cyber-issues-the-coronavirus-lays-bare-133679">COVID-19 pandemic lays bare how much we need the digital world</a> and must get cybersecurity right. </p>
<p>The disclosure that the Twitter hack originated via a social engineering technique is a reminder that cybersecurity is an individual human responsibility as much as a technical or institutional one. We are <a href="https://theconversation.com/cybersecuritys-weakest-link-humans-57455">all responsible</a>. Twitter was originally not designed to be something so politically relevant. Now we all know it is. That’s why this latest attack is so serious.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142948/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura DeNardis receives funding from the Hewlett Foundation. </span></em></p>Hackers demonstrated they can take over Twitter’s technology infrastructure, a brazen move that hints at how such an attack could destabilize society.Laura DeNardis, Professor and Interim Dean, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.