Elon Musk questions whether TikTok is ‘destroying civilization’

Elon Musk thinking out loud if’TIC Toc Destroying Civilization’ as he prepares to buy one of the world’s biggest social media platforms.

SpaceX And Tesla The CEO who bid $44 billion for Twitter suggested he was thinking about the impact of social media.

‘Is TikTok destroying civilization? Some think so,’ he tweeted last week in reference to the hugely popular video-sharing app. ‘Or maybe social media in general.’

Musk has said that he is still interested in taking over the social media site after putting the brakes on the deal with questions about the number of fake accounts on the platform.

The billionaire tech businessman told Twitter employees in an all-round meeting on June 16 that he recognized the appeal of TikTok.

He told the workers, ‘TikTok’ does a great job of making sure you don’t get bored. ‘I mean, it just sounds like ADD,’ according to a recording of the meeting heard by Insider. ‘But like, the next level.’

He admitted that he is annoyed by some TikTok videos, but that it won’t lead to more censorship on Twitter.

He reassured employees that the platform would be open to allowing users to ‘say very derogatory things within the law,’ but those word bombs should not be fired by the app, he said.

Musk told activists he wanted Twitter to be as engaging as TikTok, but more educational.

He said, ‘TikTok is interesting, but you want you to be informed about serious issues as well.

The Chinese-owned WeChat is another source of inspiration for the tech businessman.

Musk believes there is a need to fill a niche in the US social media market by bringing WeChat’s features to the US market.

Elon Musk, who bid $44 billion for Twitter, wonders if TikTok is destroying civilization

Musk is impressed with the Chinese-owned app WeChat, which he says users are “live on” and hopes will bring more likes to Twitter.

‘There is no WeChat equivalent outside of China. You basically live on WeChat in China. If we can recreate this with Twitter, we will have great success,’ he said during the company’s meeting.

WeChat offers text messaging, broadcasting, hold-to-talk voice messaging, photo sharing, video conferencing, and more.

Musk said he aims to grow Twitter to 1 billion users, a milestone that young TikTok reached in September of 2021.

Currently, Twitter has 39.6 million daily active users in the US and 189.4 million daily active users internationally, a 16 percent increase in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period last year.

Despite those gains, Twitter shares are down 11 percent so far this year.

Reporters said Musk addressed topics related to his preference for free speech, layoffs, and personal work during the hour-long call held Thursday morning.

Employees of the social media app’s parent company ByteDance regularly accessed the data of its US users, a longstanding concern under the Trump administration about the foreign-owned tech company.

‘According to leaked audio from over 80 internal TikTok meetings, ByteDance’s China-based employees have repeatedly accessed non-public data about US TikTok users. BuzzfeedReported on Friday.