As Elon Musk prepared to purchase social media leviathan Twitter for the gargantuan sum of $44 billion, there was plenty of trepidation on both sides of the transaction.
Musk, for starters, consistently complained that the platform’s leadership would not give him accurate numbers regarding the fake/bot/spam accounts infesting the site. Then, when it became clear that the Tesla CEO was planning on giving Twitter a grand reintroduction to the power of free speech, the American political left grew annoyed that their longstanding bias on the website would be vanishing.
A majority of Americans “support Elon Musk’s ongoing efforts to change Twitter to a more free and transparent platform,” a December Trafalgar Group poll shows.
Out of 1,085 likely general election voters polled between Nov. 30 and Dec. 3, a majority — 52.3 percent — say they support Musk’s Twitter endeavors, 31.3 percent say they do not, and 16. 3 percent are unsure. The margin of error is ±2.9 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.
When the “not sure” option is removed, 62.6 percent say they support Musk’s ongoing effort, while 37.4 percent say they do not.
And, of course…
Unsurprisingly, Democrats are much less supportive of free speech and transparency on the social media platform than Republicans. Nearly 60 percent of Democrats polled (59.3 percent) say they do not support Musk’s efforts, and 23.5 percent say they are not sure. A little over 17 percent support Musk.
Musk has begun his reign over Twitter with aplomb, releasing a number of internal memos from the company that demonstrated malicious and meddling censorship in the run-up to the 2020 election.
