68% of 2.6 million conversations mined in the first 24 hours after the announcement reflects positive sentiment; what are the reasons people are positive about such a move?
For some, the announcement of Elon Musk purchasing Twitter was an absolute shock while, for others, it was not a matter of “if,” but rather “when.” As soon as the announcement of Musk purchasing Twitter was released, people online were eager to voice their opinions across the internet. Committed to digging deeper into how these voices truly felt about Musk purchasing Twitter, CulturIntel leveraged its AI-powered methodology to uncover what the digital conversations across the web were saying, and, more importantly, what factors were driving how they felt about Twitter’s new owner.
The politicization of Twitter as a social media channel has been on the rise for a few years, becoming the primary social platform for elected officials and optimistic politicians running for office to promote their campaigns and interact with target demographics.
In 2019, Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, announced that the platform would be banning all political advertisements following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. However, a lack of political advertisements did not stop the platform from gaining some of the top engagement in political discussions across the internet.
Twitter’s involvement in politics gained even more attention from the public in 2021 after permanently suspending Donald Trump from the platform for “violating policies and spreading misinformation,” according to Twitter. Moving into early 2022, Twitter users were heavily debating Twitter’s involvement in suspending users and tagging content that could be misleading - some users arguing that the platform was “censoring voices” while others applauded the platform for removing “harmful opinions and content.
On January 31, 2022, Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, began purchasing Twitter shares and had purchased $2.64 billion in shares by March 14th, acquiring 9.1% of the company’s stocks and becoming the largest shareholder of Twitter. Just over a month later, on April 25th, 2022, Twitter announced Musk was purchasing the company for $44 billion.
Musk purchasing Twitter has been nothing short of a controversial topic on the platform, especially in terms of politics. Musk has been vocal on his plans to ensure the platform is “pro-freedom of speech” and, as long as someone's content doesn't go against the First Amendment’s Freedom of Speech laws (including direct threats, solicitations to commit crimes, blackmail, etc.), users will face no repercussions.
Freedom of speech under the First Amendment in The Constitution is a heavily-debated political topic in the U.S., defined as "the right to express opinions without government censorship or control," where people can express their popular, or unpopular, opinions freely. While some see free speech as beneficial for personal expression, others feel that the laws determining what is and isn't considered free speech are too vague and allow individuals to express hateful and harmful opinions with no consequence.
To better understand the sentiment towards Musk purchasing Twitter, the AI-powered market research tech company, CulturIntelTM, harvested over 2.6 million digital conversations about Musk purchasing twitter in the first 24 hours after the announcement on April 25th, 2022.
Using its proprietary algorithm powered by artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and big data tools, CulturIntel mined all available open-source digital discussions available throughout the timeframe to structure and cluster patterns in public opinion and define the sentiment towards Twitter being sold to Musk. The methodology used to understand these mindsets arguably represents one of the most authentic sources of insight; not depending on a survey or poll, but rather on the authentic, voice of the people.
Based on the 2.6 million conversations CulturIntel mined in the 24 hours following Twitter’s announcement on Musk purchasing the company, most of the digital conversations were positive towards Musk becoming the new owner of Twitter. 1.8 million conversations, or 68% of the data collected, reflect positive sentiment, while 624K conversations (24% of discussions) are negative and 208K (8% of discussions) are neutral or only asking and answering questions.
Digging deeper, CulturIntel uncovered the “why” behind factors driving positive and negative sentiment. There are three top reasons backing up positive sentiment towards Musk purchasing Twitter: individuals having conversations online feel that this is a “win” for free speech, they believe Musk will remove partisan censorship on the platform, and they anticipate more leniency on what people can post (the good, the bad, and the ugly) to allow Twitter users the ability to make decisions for themselves.
When conversations are negative towards Musk taking over Twitter, it is because they feel this decision will lead to an increase of misinformation and hate speech on the platform, that the platform may become more "right-leaning" politically, or that Musk will gain too much power.
Overall, almost 7 in 10 digital conversations in the first 24 after the announcement reflect a positive attitude towards Twitter’s decision to sell to Musk. Meaning most people see this as a move in the right direction for social media. While Twitter users are eager to see what comes next for the billionaire taking over the social network, it is too soon to anticipate what Musk’s next steps will be and how it will shift the sentiment.