Elon Musk now owns Twitter: New era of 'free speech' excites netizens, some plan to quit the platform

It seems that the little blue bird is on its way to being completely tamed by its new master.

Elon Musk, who took over the reins of Twitter on Thursday, began his reign by firing several of the top honchos at the company. He has fired chief executive officer Parag Agarwal, Vijaya Gadde the head of Legal, Policy, Trust and Safety issues, chief financial officer Ned Segal, and general counsel Sean Edgett.


The Twitterati is rather polarised over Musk’s takeover and the firing spree. While some were predictably gleeful at Musk showing ‘woke’ employees the door and displayed some blatant schadenfreude at the news, others expressed concern that Musk’s reign might lead to more discrimination against minorities.

“Hooray! Finally a public square of free speech,” wrote a Twitter user. Another commented, “Good riddance. These are the hypocrites who implemented hair-trigger account suspensions with no guidance and no recourse for any of us. Twitter should be a town hall of ideas, not censorship.” Another commented, “is it just me, or does Twitter already seem better?”.

Others however were sceptical about Musk’s decision and pointed out that instead of being a paradise where freedom of speech would reign supreme, Twitter would just devolve to become a right-wing echo chamber. “I can't wait until Twitter is reduced to a right-wing echo chamber even right-wingers will hate. Shouldn't take long.” Another wrote, “Yikes! Time to leave?” Another chimed in, “He will lose a ton of advertising if he takes this in the "Ye" direction,” referring to how rapper Kanye West lost a lot of goodwill and brand deals over his anti-Semitic comments.
Many came out in the defence of Agrawal. “Parag Agrawal secured the bag for his shareholders and got fired, they should build a statue of him in the shareholder value hall of fame,” a user wrote.
Many Indian Twitteratis reacted to the sacking of the Indian-origin CEO with memes. One user shared a picture of an eatery ‘Aggarwal Sweets and Snacks’ along with a caption, “#ParagAgrawal is back with a bang in front of Twitter HQ.”
Another wrote, “ Elon Musk fires Twitter CEO, Parag Agrawal. Even the job of the Twitter CEO is not secure. That’s why Indian parents ask their children to do government jobs.”

Earlier, in an interview with Reuters, Musk had revealed that he is planning a massive cultural overhaul for Twitter. He said that wanted to prevent the platform from becoming an “echo chamber of hate and division”. He also talked about limiting censorship for the app.