Much ado about very little, in 140 characters

The old saying in journalism is that "freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press," but that recognition of the importance of having control over the means of production is clearly outdated.

I was thinking about this traditional wisdom as I was reading all the commentary on world's richest man Elon Musk purchasing Twitter for a mere $44 billion. That's like $100 for most people's budgets, but that's not the point.

Twitter is the "press," in this case, and Musk will definitely own that press and everything that appears on it... and he is on record as being in favor of nearly unfettered free speech. Conservatives are cheering his buyout, and that should be enough to make everyone think a bit more critically about another rich guy adding to his "toy collection."

I deleted my little-used Twitter account last fall, as the platform dithered about how to handle the dangerous lies from Trump and his minions, and I have never regretted that. When Twitter finally banned Trump for life due to his repeated violations of their rules, I didn't start tweeting again. I am fine.

The numbers regarding Twitter are startling, with over 192 registered users worldwide, though that makes it only the sixth most popular social media app. Only a very low percentage of those users create the vast majority of the total posts each day, which seems like the opposite of a democratic institution.

It's quick and short and nasty and easily sharable. It has little to do with journalism but almost all journalists are on Twitter all the time.

I would love to see Musk lose a boatload of money as people delete their Twitter accounts, but that is not likely to happen. About 8 percent of Americans say that Twitter is their main source of news, while over 50 percent claim that Facebook is their primary news source. Both those statistics are disturbing when we consider the cesspool of the Internet and the deluge of bots and slimy sites and unscrupulous users out to make a buck.

Maybe Musk will institute some new processes that will make Twitter the "town square" for the world, but certainly this is true: Elon Musk will soon be the publisher of Twitter and ultimately must own its content. He's too rich to care much about what anyone thinks about him, of course, but pissing off millions is not ever a good play for business owners.

Here's another observation: the Twitter purchase by Musk bumped the Ukraine invasion to a "second story," at least for a few days. 

The media can't resist covering rich people doing "rich people things,' and that is too bad.