Elon Musk And Twitter Will Face One Big Challenge This Year: Lawsuits

Prepare to fight.

If you are Elon Musk, it’s time to wear a mouth guard, install a ring at your company headquarters, and suit up for the one thing that could bring the company to its knees: litigation. This is in addition to a possible fight with Mark Zuckerberg.

Music publishers recently sued the social media platform for $250 million. Twitter was accused of users being able to listen to music online without proper licensing. Publishers claim that since late 2021 they’ve sent more than 300,000 notices about the way the platform violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which protects licensing for music.

The “free and open” nature of Twitter could be part of the problem. On Facebook, the minute you post a copyrighted song (usually, one that is more than 10-15 seconds long), you’ll see a notice and Facebook will mute the song or remove it.

Whatever governorship over music licensing and copyright that is happening at Facebook is obviously more advanced than Twitter’s protection. It’s annoying, but I can also understand the reason why Facebook is doing the gatekeeping.

Twitter has a bigger problem.

The recent reports of clashes between Google and Amazon regarding hosting fees will surely backfire, and result in court cases. Like someone who decides they don’t want to pay rent anymore or wants to break out of their Netflix contract a bit earlier than expected, these clashes seem to be an indicator of Twitter’s financial health, a company now worth substantially less than it was when Musk took over.

Elon Musk, as we have seen over the past year, isn’t afraid to show off and eliminate services that he feels are unnecessary.

I am reminded of a King or President (ahem), who take control and make radical changes, without considering the possible damage. You would have thought that in this situation, cloud hosting was important enough for it to remain and the relationship would be valued.

The biggest and most healthy companies are not immune to litigation. 3M recently settled a massive lawsuit for $12.5 billion over “forever chemicals” in contaminated water. Wells Fargo as well as Delta Air Lines were sued for diversity allegations.

This might be the cost of the “shoot from the hip” style Elon Musk has exhibited over the years. Even more than that, it’s the downside of trying to create an open social media platform, one that lets you say whatever you want without restrictions.

In the real world, that type of open network is going to lead to frequent lawsuits — above and beyond anything to do with Taylor Swift and music streaming. This includes lawsuits regarding mistreatment, misinformation, and false promises, as well as breaches of contracts with large corporations.

In the end, there’s a reason companies have legal departments, that they don’t break contracts unless there is a very sound reason, and they cover themselves against data breaches and other problems.

Hopefully the lawsuits don’t come before Musk can figure out how to turn the company around and make Twitter worth having on our phones again. It’s possible that he will need to increase revenue in order to maintain the company.