Elon Musk apparently thinks he can make a better social media site

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Your next social media platform might be coming from Tesla CEO Elon Musk. But don’t hold your breath.

Okay, once you finish laughing, you did read that correctly. During his weekend shitposting on Twitter, Musk mused about free speech with a poll, and asked if Twitter “rigorously adheres to this principle?”

Seventy percent of his followers (or anyone that saw his poll) say no, which isn’t surprising. His response after the poll was finished was “Is a new platform needed?”

As with most Musk tweets, this one is a stinker. I mean, just because you disagree with the moderation of a private company that you’re on, it doesn’t mean you need a different platform.

If he really thought that, he would have stood on the corner outside of his house shouting it into the ether, instead of tweeting to his 79.4 million followers.

We’re not holding our breath for this new platform. Musk has a history of deliberately provocative statements on Twitter.

READ MORE: Elon Musk now sits on Twitter’s board of directors

It’s not like he doesn’t benefit from Twitter’s sometimes judicious safety team either. Back in 2018, cryptocurrency scammers were using variations of Elon’s name to push their scams. Twitter started insta-locking any accounts that changed their display name to show Elon’s name.

Can the cult of personality around Elon Musk actually create a social site that sticks around? Recent history from other sites would suggest no.

Truth Social, Gettr, Parler, and From the Desk of Donald J Trump are all in varying levels of disarray or even defunct, mere months after their launches.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

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• AARP wants old people to drop Facebook for its new platform
• Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, doesn’t like Facebook

Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.