Elon Musk reportedly considered buying TikTok ahead of a US-wide ban. But what would it mean for society if “broligarchs” consolidated their influence on social media?
With TikTok “going dark” in the US on January 19 following the Supreme Court’s decision this week to uphold a controversial law forcing its sale, reports have surfaced that billionaire Elon Musk is considering buying the popular short-form video app.
Musk already owns what was Twitter, which he bought in 2022 and rebranded X. In recent months, he has been criticised for using the platform to promote far-right parties in European politics.
But what would this latest foray into social media mean for the rest of us? Experts consulted by Euronews Next say that Musk’s possible acquisition of TikTok would be “inappropriate and dangerous”.
Yet, the problem of social media ownership falling into the hands of a dwindling number of powerful tech leaders predates Musk or any TikTok deal.
If yet another social media app like TikTok, which millions use daily, falls into the hands of a tech billionaire, or “broligarch,” what are the possible repercussions?
‘Arbitrary power at a very massive scale’
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Musk, and other social media founders have an “arbitrary power” to manipulate how the public gets their information “at a very massive scale,” according to Marc Faddoul, co-founder of AI Forensics, a European non-profit that investigates algorithms.
It’s an opinion that is echoed by others in the field. The concentrated ownership means “it’s at the whim” of billionaires to decide what is promoted or not on their channels without any real challenge from citizens, according to Paul Reilly, a senior lecturer in communications at the University of Glasgow in the UK.
To Reilly, Meta’s recent move to axe fact-checking to make way for “community notes,” where users correct each other on facts, is an example of how they can change the public discourse to reflect their own views.
“They’re very often promoting free speech absolutism… [but] it’s very poorly defined,” Reilly said. “When they say they’re not about censorship, they do censor opinions when they don’t agree”.
For example, research from Human Rights Watch found that Meta was censoring Palestinian voices and “shadow banning them” on Instagram and Facebook.
Social media algorithms also propagate the views of these “broligarchs,” making it easier to “get people angry and riled up,” so users continue to support political parties that are aligned with their business interests, according to Fiona Scott Morton, a senior fellow at European think tank Bruegel.
“[The public is] confused, they’re misinformed, they’re angry, they’re emotional, and so they make a decision to vote for the far right or… to give giant tax cuts to rich people,” Morton said.
‘Extreme concentration’ in social media since 2012
The tech broligarchy’s consolidation of social media apps started in 2012, when Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion (€970 million). Two years later, the company purchased WhatsApp, a popular messaging tool, for $19 billion (€18.47 billion).
Both acquisitions are under investigation by the US Federal Trades Commission (FTC) in an antitrust trial coming before courts in April.
According to Faddoul, both acquisitions raised concerns about “extreme concentration” in the social media market.
Users now post to both Instagram and Facebook, creating “synergy” or shared content between the platforms and reaching new demographics that neither app had before, Faddoul continued.
“[Meta’s purchase of Instagram] was, in hindsight, very likely what allowed Meta to continue to keep its power on the social media market because… it’s more Instagram than Facebook that is more used right now”.
Similar antitrust issues would arise if Musk ever acquired TikTok because he would find a way to integrate the app’s popular short-form video with his platform X.
This could take the form of connecting an X profile and its followers to TikTok, along with short-form video content being cross-promoted on X users’ news feeds, Faddoul continued.
Morton said Musk’s possible acquisition of TikTok could mean further information manipulation by Musk.
“[Musk] would do the same thing [as he did to Twitter] – get rid of content moderation, get rid of safety, get rid of any standards, and let it become a kind of hate and right-wing promotional vehicle,” she said.
Who holds the ‘broligarchy’ accountable?
In the US, the FTC is in charge of investigating any anti-competitive behaviours by social media and tech “broligarchs”.
Faddoul and Morton believe the incoming Trump administration would be weak on enforcing antitrust regulation because most Republican governments tend to favour corporate profits.
In addition, social media founders like Zuckerberg and Musk positioned themselves alongside incoming US President Donald Trump throughout the 2024 campaign and leading up to inauguration day on January 20.
The reason the “broligarchs” could be doing that, according to Faddoul and Morton, is because Trump could resolve legal issues for them if and when they come up.
“[Donald] Trump could maybe protect Big Tech from, for example, European regulation and fines – that seems good [to Zuckerberg],” Faddoul said.
Faddoul said any accountability against the heads of social media companies will come from the EU, likely through the enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA).
The European Commission launched an investigation into Musk’s content moderation policies on X in 2023 and decided this week to request more documents.
“It’s more important than ever to make sure that this text is fully enforced despite the political consequences it might have,” Faddoul said.
However, Faddoul said the EU wouldn’t have jurisdiction to prevent one company from buying another if one is not European.
The new app ecosystem
Some users are bucking the “broligarchs” by migrating to new platforms, like Bluesky, Mastodon, and Signal.
In the few days before the US presidential inauguration, movements in Germany, Austria, and France saw many institutions preparing their migration from X to Bluesky.
Faddoul said Bluesky, in particular, has a feature that lets users choose which algorithms they are exposed to that tailors the app’s experience.
“By enabling an open and decentralised infrastructure by design, you actually create much more, much better conditions for pluralism to emerge,” Faddoul said about how Bluesky was designed.
“Not everyone needs to have the same moderation rule”.
Faddoul said these apps also let users have full control over their data, something that is a criticism of other platforms like X, which has been accused of using it to train artificial intelligence (AI) models or selling it to third parties.
A plurality of social media platforms, Morton added, would also mean they would have to deliver a better product to keep and retain users.
But despite Bluesky’s initial success in doing this, Morton said it is challenging for new platforms to get a leg up on Meta or X because these platforms are “sticky”.
“Everybody’s there, so I have to be there,” she said. “If I try to move my business in response to quality away from Instagram to Bluesky, I lose my friends”.
What needs to happen next, according to Morton, is for the US federal government to put in place measures to make these social networks “interoperable,” so people can connect with their friends on whichever platform they choose.
