Apathy toward social media is growing with a recruiting dynamic that has drawn popular voices to jump the bandwagon of its criticism, and the idea of creating an alternative platform devoid of propaganda and censorship as a solution to social media platforms’ undoing.

The latest recruit is Elon Musk. Last week, the world’s richest man started a series of tweets accompanied by polls on Twitter, where he revealed that he is seriously thinking about starting a social media platform.

The SpaceX founder and CEO started the conversation with a poll asking whether Twitter algorithm should be open source. 82.7% of the 1.12 million responders voted yes at the close of the poll.

Twitter algorithm should be open source

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2022

This was followed by another poll the next day. Musk tweeted that “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy,” and then ask if people believed that Twitter was rigorously adhering to this principle. He then urged people to vote carefully as the consequences of the poll would be important. At the end of the voting session, 70.4% of the 2.04 million respondents said “No”.

Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.

Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2022

He then went on to say that “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?”

Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy.

What should be done? https://t.co/aPS9ycji37

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2022

A couple of minutes later, Pranay Pathole, an Indian software developer asked the Tesla CEO if he would consider building a new social media platform, “One that would consist an open source algorithm, one where free speech and adhering to free speech is given top priority, one where propaganda is very minimal. I think that kind of a platform is needed.”

To this, he answered that he was “giving it a serious thought.”

https://twitter.com/PPathole/status/1507780749629730817?t=TLTc6_QiAoFXUucUHGDB-Q&s=19

Musk’s weekend conversation and polls on Twitter have resurrected a fresh discussion around freedom of speech, disinformation and hate speech that social media platforms have been continuously fingered as its enablers.

In January last year, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube banned the accounts of former US president, Donald Trump, following the January 6 Capitol insurrection he was accused of stoking using social media. The ban drew mixed reaction, which mostly centered on free speech, around the world.

Last year, Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari banned Twitter after his tweet was removed for violating Twitter policy. While his decision was widely condemned, it got a lot of support from many popular individuals, including Trump himself.

Trump’s attempt to strip social media platforms of some powers and to hold them responsible for activities on their platform, by amending section 230(c)(2), which provides immunity from civil liabilities for information service providers, allowing social media sites to remove or add warning labels to users’ posts or even suspend people who violate their rules, was vetoed by the Congress.

Since then, Trump has made two attempts to establish his own social media platform where he claimed people will have liberty to express themselves without being censored. The latest, Truth Social, has gained a lot of attention since it was announced, though people doubt that it will be anything near a platform of free speech since Trump himself is known for being intolerant to criticism.

Social media companies have found themselves in between the devil and deep blue sea. Many governments around the world are working to limit what everyone is allowed to post on social media, while outside the governments, the people don’t want to be censored on social media.

Besides governments’ pressure to control the narrative, social media is seen to be struggling to find a balance in an era of woke and cancel culture, where unnatural ideas are becoming a norm and people are not allowed to speak out against them. Many are accusing social media platforms of censorship while others say they have allowed users to create unhealthy environments in the name of free speech.

Musk’s revelation that he is “seriously” considering establishing a social media platform may be the disrupter that the industry should be wary of, especially Twitter, which is his platform of choice. But would it solve the problem? In a world where one man’s truth is another man’s lie, running a social media platform on uncontrolled freedom of speech beckons disaster.

Before succumbing to pressure to ban Trump from Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that social media platforms shouldn’t act as arbiter of truth. He said that the first time Twitter affixed a label on Trump’s tweet, highlighting it as a potential lie. But with pressure piling up on social media as legislators and rights organizations step up efforts to stem online hate and disinformation, Facebook has updated its policy and has begun taking similar action against users.

Musk is currently worth a whopping $250 billion, weighs a huge social media influence and can easily create a successful social media platform. But will it be immune to regulatory influences? Will it not become a sanctuary for hate and bullying at the long run? It is believed that just like in Trump’s case, individuals’ idea of starting a social media platform is borne from the desire to promote what they believe in.

First, the registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) must be commended for his service to the nation. He has turned a loss-making Board into one that has become a profit-center for the Nigerian government. Unfortunately, that success is the reason why some of us are not happy. Simply, JAMB should not be another LNG or NNPC which makes money to send excesses to the federal government.

The only thing Nigeria offers the common man today is subsidized tertiary education. Making access to it affordable will remain a key pillar for families to rise.  And as part of it, JAMB results MUST not expire after a year. It makes no sense to subject young people to this seasonable stress.

I propose for all results to expire after three years. That will reduce the burden for young people since not getting admitted into a university in Nigeria is not really about not being able to pass, but largely access. You have close to 2 million writing the exams for available slots of 500k across the colleges. Many of those 1.5m who will pass but cannot find space. Then,next year, they have to begin from afresh.

I call on the government to fix this mess even as we celebrate another record of JAMB revenue:  N8.6 billion in Q1 2022! As JAMB celebrates another “registration surpasses expectation’ moment, I want the House of Assembly to understand that we have really nothing to celebrate since next year is expected to be higher as repeatedly frustrated young people will retake an exam they have passed. 

Phase out the 1 year expiration of JAMB results;  I recommend a  3-year minimum.

At the close of the registration for the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and Direct Entry (DE) programme on Saturday, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) said a total of 1,837,011 candidates were successfully captured in the exercise that took place nationwide between February 19 and March 26.

This is contained in the latest weekly bulletin by JAMB which was released in Sunday night.

With N4,700 registration fee paid by the applicants, JAMB has successfully generated an estimated revenue of a total of N8.6 billion.

Out of the lump sum, a total of 776 computer-based test centres that took part in the exercise will share an estimated amount of N1.3 billion at the rate of N700 per candidate registered by each of the centres.

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Relative to the dominant discussion of burnout among employees and even business owners, there is another topic about the 4-day work week being better than the 5-day work week. The argument here is that if people do not spend all of their time working, they would generally be more productive when they return to work. I will come back to this in a moment

This post is not about founders and business owners, most of whom work the 7 days of the week. This is about the employees who mostly have that one story of how they worked themselves sick or experienced brain fog due to long unending work hours. It is on this premise that the suggestion of a 4-hour workweek comes up – allow people to have an extra day to add to the weekend to relax.

The question now is – how feasible is this?

As an entrepreneur or business manager, would you still have any company left if your staff worked 4 days a week? Will this actually increase productivity for the company? If this is to be applied, is there a way the reduced work hours will reflect on remuneration? Do employees really need an extra day to add to their weekends? And if they get that extra day off work, will they actually relax? Or will they be chasing other sources of income, or side hustles?

First of all, I should note here that while the 4-day work week may be practicable in a few sectors, it cannot apply to some others. Without mentioning any, there are sectors where staffs work 7 days a week, plus a few extra hours. There are also businesses where the staffs work in shifts, as against the regular 9 to 5.

Now, on to the issue of productivity and how this may or may not affect it. One question the manager should objectively answer is whether you are giving your employees less to do, or you expect them to do the same work in fewer hours. The answer to this is very important to the success of your entire productivity drive. What I find is that some only end up filling the shorter hours with more work still trying to beat the same targets, and trying to produce more faster.

If this is your case, then you are sabotaging the goal you are trying to achieve. If you want to help your staff free up time to spend with family and do the things they love, then they should be able to spend that time relaxing, not worrying about the pile of work they have to return to.

Trying to increase productivity is a totally noble gesture, but there doesn’t have to be a hard rule to it. For some businesses and some sectors, the 4-day work week may work just fine. For some others, it could be reducing the work hours from 9 – 5 to 9 – 3 for the five days of the week. Another business could instead choose to reduce weekly targets by 20%. Still, another could provide a flexible work plan that cuts off commute time.

You could have a discussion with your staff and find out what works for them, rather than adopt what every other business is adopting. After all, you are really trying to help your staff so they should have a say in what they want. Who knows? Some of them might even opt to work more hours for some extra allowances or incentives. Don’t assume.

The principal thing is to create a good work culture and treat your employees as you would treat that expensive machinery that you service regularly to avoid breakdown.