I never expected a business deal to compete with COVID and Ukraine for top billing on nightly news broadcasts.

That’s what’s happened with Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the Twitter communications empire. It’s gotten attention not just because of a huge price tag, but also because of how it could affect a system under which millions of people share their ideas.

I personally don’t tweet and probably never will. It seems better to use social media for slightly longer messages, the kind where there’s more potential to inject substance by making full use of the English language.

There’s also something to be said for being selective when it comes to a target audience. When I use social media, my goal is to reach out to relatives, real-life friends, and school classmates.

I still have thoughts about the Twitter purchase, however, because of how tweets have captivated so many people. What happens to the company will impact trends in both personal communication and the news media. It’s already led to strong reactions.

Twitter is like a newspaper to the extent that both share personal perspectives. Newspaper reporters share the thoughts of their sources. Columnists and the public can both share viewpoints on the editorial page.

Based on that similarity, my first reaction to Musk is to disagree with his assertion that media providers go too far in restricting free speech. I also disagree with his statement that media should become a modern-day town square.

Free speech has its limits. Social media has pushed the envelope at times. It often comes much closer to being too fast and loose than too restrictive.

Sometimes it ruins friendships instead of deepening them. It can lead to tasteless humor. It’s even served as a vehicle for bullying.

Gatekeepers of any media outlet have a legal and moral responsibility to hold all comments up to basic minimum standards of decency. There’s never a need to automatically allow free speech, not if it violates something basic.

Sometimes there’s not even a specific issue. There might just be a shortfall when it comes to making a point. There’s no need to devote valuable page space or cyberspace to something that just rants and raves.

The town square analogy also doesn’t hold water because media never has the same kind of person to person interaction seen in traditional town squares.

If people sound off from a park bench they’re at least in plain sight for everyone to judge. They leave themselves wide open to rejection, to being ignored or told politely or not so politely to go home.

It’s different when they can hide behind a computer. Even if everyone in a hometown rejects them, they’re likely to find friends somewhere. Someone with radical ideas is likely to become more radical because of those online associations.

Any use of respectable media sources should be seen as a privilege and a responsibility rather than a right. The overall tone and content of a media source will degenerate if owners go too far in giving the public a wide open right to speak out.

It remains to be seen what Monk will do with Twitter. He’s making a different sort of venture than his other achievements with technology enterprises.

Technology people are not the ones who are best suited to chart the course of mass media. Their expertise is based on things rather than people.

Educators, psychologists, social scientists and journalists are all better equipped to make decisions about media content. Therefore Musk will need a well rounded group of inner circle advisors, one that can collectively work toward fair and hopefully positive experiences for all Twitter users.

He’ll have to prove that he can run Twitter based on dollars and “sense” rather than simply dollars and cents.

In the end it won’t all come down to money. It’s a question of knowing the entire audience.

— Jim Muchlinski is a longtime reporter and contributor to the Marshall Independent