Twitter: Both heavy moderation and an open platform 'can exist to some capacity,' professor says

Carnegie Mellon University Professor Ari Lightman joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss Elon Musk's impending acquisition of Twitter and the direction of the platform going forward.

Video Transcript

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DAVE BRIGGS: Time for your Musk Minute. Elon making his pitch to Twitter advertisers a day ahead of an October 28 deadline to complete his $44 billion deal to buy the platform. You can see shares up just over 1% at the moment. Musk writing an open letter, saying this, in part, quote, "Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise."

Joining us to discuss is Ari Lightman, digital media and marketing professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College. Good to see you, sir. So can you do that? Can you aspire to be what Elon just did there, and do the other things he wants, which is bring more voices back on to the platform, some of which are very divisive?

ARI LIGHTMAN: It's really difficult. You have to build trust. And trust is really hard in an age where we have a lot of misinformation. We have a lot of brand hijacking. And things can get away from you very, very quickly in social media, as a lot of brands know. The last thing any brand wants is a mismatch associated with its brand identity and its brand values. And misogyny, misinformation, hate speech, anti-Semitism, which can widely circulate in a social media platform that's uncensored and unchecked.

SEANA SMITH: So Ari, then, how does Musk then best approach it? If you are advising him right now, how to build the relationship with advisors, how to build that trust, like you just said, what are one or two steps or things he can prioritize in order to gain it?

ARI LIGHTMAN: That's a really good question. Lots of openness, lots of experimentation. A lot of social media platforms, when they hide their algorithms from advertisers, and they don't-- their ad messages don't show like they hope they would or present themselves to different communities that they're trying to track through these social platforms, they lose trust in the platform quite a bit. And they look for other avenues. And there's plenty of other avenues where they could spend their marketing dollars, whether it's TikTok or Snapchat or what have you.

So he has to make sure that he understands their needs and understands some of their concerns, and how he's going to address those concerns associated with operating the platform. It's a really new space, if you think about it.

DAVE BRIGGS: This letter is a true gem. He says, Twitter cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences. He also says, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all. How would you describe the platform today? And how do you think it's perceived by advertisers?

ARI LIGHTMAN: It's a tricky platform, right? There's a lot of snark. There's a lot of cynicism, right? There's a lot of skepticism. There's a lot of folks that gravitate very quickly to a lot of Twitter influencers that we know of, right? So communities get built, and they evoke a lot of pull and a lot of sway. Understanding this and addressing this in conversation is critical, right?

There's a balance, if you will, between this idea of heavily moderated, heavily censored, and an open platform. Both can exist to some capacity, right? But being very, very genuine, if you will, in terms of why they're doing more of this idea of openness is critical to get them to understand how the platform will help sort of build their brand, be authentic to the brand that wants to advertise on it, and allow them to do specific initiatives, whether it's more awareness, whether it's community building, or whether it's attracting new audiences associated with that brand.

DAVE BRIGGS: Ari, how do you think advertisers perceive a potential conflict of interest, being that Elon Musk isn't just the owner of Twitter, he is the owner and CEO of Tesla that has zero advertising budget. Could that be an issue?

ARI LIGHTMAN: Yeah, absolutely. So some of these, in and of themselves, so in the case of Elon Musk and Tesla, there are two brands there, right? The brand of Tesla and the brand of Musk. And he integrates the two of them incredibly well. And they're very valuable properties, in and of themselves. I think he's going to have to answer that question to advertisers associated with the fact that Tesla doesn't have that marketing budget that they expound.

But if Elon Musk wants to do it adeptly, helping advertisers understanding influence within the space, right, how to create it, how to develop it. And what that means when you think about persuasion, when you think about motivation, those sorts of things, a lot of brands that we work with at Carnegie Mellon are trying to understand that analytically, right? Which influencers do we pay attention to?

How do we get them to sort of help in terms of spreading awareness associated with what we stand for, the mission associated with our brand, whether that might be sustainability or whether that might be performance and activation and consumer response, those sorts of things. Elon could probably run a class on this. But how he helps advertisers in terms of understanding the uniqueness of social media and the uniqueness of social influencers might be very critical, associated with getting them to trust advertising within the platform.