Jim Watson/AFP
Elon Musk’s plans to privatize Twitter have spurred concern among privacy experts and social media researchers, including one former Harvard professor who told The Washington Post that having one person in control of the social platform “is a disaster” for user privacy.
The former professor and author of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” Shoshana Zuboff, said huge ad revenues and unregulated data collection about user behavior have changed the social media industry, which now holds incredible sway over real-world events…
Putting that power in the hands of a single person, she said, would be “incompatible with democracy.”
“There are simply no checks and balances from any internal or external force,” Zuboff told The Washington Post.
Do you trust Elon Musk?
Cripes, I don’t trust any president, any Congress, probably no one who’s paid to be a full-time politician. OTOH, I’m still out here even though the official government yoyos also have the FBI, NSA, CIA. The whole alphabet soup of snoops! Probably means I’m not enough of a gadfly.
Eideard 
Of course WaPo is owned by Bezos. I smell a rat.
Securities filings checked by Reuters show George Soros has bought almost 20 million shares of Rivian Automotive. This amounts to almost a $2 billion investment. The Soros Fund Management has now become one of the biggest investors in the company that Jeff Bezos trusted to become a real Tesla competitor. Who knows how the markets would have reacted if the Cybertruck had gotten the promised timely launch. (2/13/22) https://www.autoevolution.com/news/george-soros-invested-in-rivian-stock-has-more-than-halved-since-181535.html
Elon Musk is exploring whether to commence a tender offer for Twitter, according to a new securities filing.
The updated filing published on Thursday says Musk has received commitments for $46.5 billion to help finance the potential deal. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/musk-to-explore-potential-tender-offer-for-twitter-has-46point5b-in-committed-financing-for-potential-deal.html
Twitter is reportedly reconsidering Elon Musk’s bid to buy the social media company after the Tesla CEO confirmed $46.5 billion in financing https://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter-reportedly-reconsidering-elon-musks-193421833.html
Reuters says Musk’s $43 billion bid is poised to be accepted by Twitter’s board and that an official announcement could be expected later in the day.
Twitter shares are currently up more than 3% as analysts speculate Twitter may want to finalize a takeover deal ahead of the company’s Q1 earnings report on Thursday.
https://www.tmz.com/2022/04/25/elon-musk-new-owner-twitter-43-billion-offer-accepted/
p/s: taking the company private might mean twitter will become a subscription-based service – how much will you be willing to pay?
How to lock down your Twitter data, or leave, before Elon Musk takes over https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/300573932/how-to-lock-down-your-twitter-data-or-leave-before-elon-musk-takes-over
Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter could face a probe into potential national security risks posed by Musk’s foreign investors, according to a Reuters report on Friday. The foreign investment could invite “the kind of regulatory scrutiny over US national security that social media peer TikTok faced,” the report said. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/musks-foreign-investors-may-trigger-national-security-review-of-twitter-deal/
Musk’s investors include Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Al Waleed bin Talal al Saud. The Saudi Kingdom Holding Company already owns 5.2 percent of Twitter stock and plans to roll that $1.9 billion stake into Musk’s privatized Twitter. The Qatar investment is for $375 million.
Musk also has a $500 million investment from Binance, a major cryptocurrency exchange that has faced its own government scrutiny. Binance was founded in China in 2017 but quickly left the country when China’s government restricted cryptocurrency trading; it now operates without an official headquarters.