Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here. My first question is for Twitter.
Today in committee, as you may have heard, we talked a lot about right-wing opinion and left-wing opinion, sharing online, and the harmful content from extreme elements of both. I'm sure you're also aware that Conservatives sometimes comment how they feel unfairly targeted by social media censorship.
In that same vein, in your joint statement with Elon Musk, he explained his motivation for wanting to buy Twitter and take it private. He said, “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are [being] debated”. Elon Musk, as you know, has also said he wants to enhance Twitter with new features, “making the algorithms open source to increase [user] trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all [human users].
Do you feel that Mr. Musk can achieve these goals, and do you feel that will ensure all sides of the political spectrum, so to speak, including Conservatives, are better protected to share their opinions freely on your platform?