Opinion | Elon Musk’s Bid to Take Over Twitter

To the Editor:

Re “After Toying With Twitter, Musk Now Wants It All” (front page, April 15):

What a disaster it would be for Elon Musk to acquire Twitter and open it up to disinformation and lies from Donald Trump and other right-wing activists.

Misinformation, unconstrained by any need to be accurate or honest, is psychologically seductive, and countering it by fact-checking is often ineffective. That is why the right wing is in full support of Mr. Musk, cynically claiming that it’s a “free speech” issue.

Twitter would likely return to broadcasting anti-democratic misinformation about elections, with devastating consequences. In the face of intense voter suppression, gerrymandering and partisan attacks on election boards and secretaries of state, America’s grasp on democracy is already very shaky. The country just barely survived a coup attempt on Jan 6. A return to a complete free-for-all on Twitter is a frightening prospect.

Gary M. Stewart
Laguna Beach, Calif.

To the Editor:

In a stunning move, Elon Musk has taken action into his own hands by offering to take over Twitter for more than $40 billion. The world’s richest person, in a letter to Twitter’s board chairman, stated his primary goal: to transform Twitter, the de facto town square, “to be the platform for free speech around the globe.”

It should be a given that all social media platforms, including Twitter, should adhere to free speech principles, but sadly that is not the case. In addition, social media should make life better. Its hallmarks should be open communication, respectful dialogue and the good-faith, free exchange of ideas and information. It should be part of the solution, not the problem. Again, this is not the case.

Social media today has become a source of hostility, lack of civility, distrust, propaganda, alienation, misinformation and cancellation. Mr. Musk’s efforts should be applauded and celebrated. Just as his other endeavors have revolutionized industry, I am confident that he’ll do the same for the social media sector.

A meaningful and fundamental transformation of Twitter is required. A mere change in management, financial structure or algorithms will not suffice. Can it be done? Yes.

It’s not a mission to Mars. But what Elon Musk is suggesting can be a giant leap forward for our society.

Dan Rubino
New York
The writer is the founder and executive chairman of ImpactWayv, a media and technology company created to disrupt and transform business and philanthropy.

To the Editor:

Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter is understandably creating much consternation, particularly among those who worry about concentrating too much power over public media in one person’s hands. I wonder if there might be a way to revise the F.C.C.’s media cross-ownership rules, which were designed to avoid a single corporate entity from owning multiple types of media companies, to somehow reduce Twitter’s power over the global messaging landscape.

These rules were conceived long before the advent of social media, so they could not have foreseen platforms like Twitter and Facebook that consolidate audiences at a global level and concentrate messaging power in such dramatic fashion.

Maybe it’s time for the F.C.C. to dust off the cross-ownership rules and figure out how to make them relevant to our current media landscape.

Tom Short
San Rafael, Calif.

What the Allies Can Do in Ukraine

To the Editor:

The United States has been understandably reluctant to undertake military actions, such as a no-fly zone over Ukraine, that would entail initiating attacks on Russian forces. But the barbarism of Vladimir Putin’s invasion requires that we do far more to enable the Ukrainians themselves to repel the aggressors.

Let us move powerful allied military forces — including those from the U.S., Canada and Britain — into several of the large blocks of territory that Russia has not yet penetrated or from which it has been repulsed. At the very least, let us establish large, well-defined defensive perimeters around Kyiv and Odesa, and across a wide swath of Ukraine’s western border.

Any direct confrontations between the allied and Russian forces would have to be at Mr. Putin’s initiative — as a result of Russian attacks — and he should be as reluctant as President Biden has been to take such risks. But the presence of allied forces would free more Ukrainian forces to confront the Russians on the active fronts, and it would guarantee safer corridors by which military and humanitarian equipment could reach the beleaguered nation.

Mr. Putin is on a “holy” cause: to restore the sway of the czarist and Soviet empires. Further inconveniences targeting the oligarchs he has created and the masses he dominates will not deter his efforts to establish his “heroic” place in history as the 21st-century heir to the czars and the commissars. Only a solid military defeat can shatter that evil dream.

Peter Eckstein
Ann Arbor, Mich.
The writer is the retired research director of the Michigan A.F.L.-C.I.O.

The Utter Sincerity of Bernie Sanders

To the Editor:

Re “Still Feeling the Bern,” by Maureen Dowd (column, Sunday Review, April 17):

Bernie Sanders never had my vote, but he had — and still has — my admiration. It’s not because of what he thinks, although I’m in favor of some of that, but why he thinks it.

Bernie Sanders is that rare politician who clearly, truly believes in and cares about what he says. It’s awful that sincerity of that kind should be remarkable. But it is.

More and more politicians today say whatever they think will get them elected, whether it’s expressing devotion to Donald Trump or dissing vaccinations. If only these people had some kind of Oscar they could strive for. We could probably even count on them not to slap anybody.

Betty Rollin
New York
The writer is a journalist and the author of “First, You Cry” and “Last Wish.”

Preying on People of Color

To the Editor:

Re “For-Profit College Preyed on Black and Female Students, Suit Says” (news article, April 12):

The class-action lawsuit against Walden University that claims the for-profit college overcharged Black women more than $28.5 million for costs and credits is a welcome challenge to an industry that preys on people of color. But education is far from the only sector where racial and gender discrimination is systemic.

It’s well established that the U.S. economy was built from the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, where the exploitation and occupational segregation of people of color led to a two-track economy, progressing at vastly different speeds.

“Reverse redlining,” for example, is on the rise in housing, as minority neighborhoods are targeted with higher prices or unfair lending practices. Black homeownership has declined more drastically than for any other ethnic or racial group in the U.S.

We need strengthened civil rights laws and enforcement, and more lawsuits like the class-action suit against Walden, to bring those who profit off economic discrimination to justice, and make them pay.

Christian F. Nunes
Washington
The writer is president of the National Organization for Women.