There's gift I've ever received has to be a bike when I was younger, a pedal bike.

It was a sort of slick little road bike and I remember it was all like it was so it was all wrapped up

but it was so obvious what it was obviously because nothing shaped like a bike and I had a little ribbon on it and I was so

I guess. For that was a life changer and I'm still sort of big on cycling around my area now so for that one change me a little.

I enjoy in every sip with red cups now back at Starbucks.

This is a word a podcast from Slate. I'm your host Jason Johnson. Twitter has long been a public square for America and even the world.

In Black Twitter, Maloo's collection of thought leaders, influencers and entertainers on the site has grown into an imperfect community of its own.

The place to debate, trade jokes and actually make friends in good times and bad. But since tech billionaire Elon Musk bought the site many are worried there's just a matter of time before Twitter is gentrified with tech bros and alt-right bots.

So what happens to Black Twitter now?

It's certainly possible that the kind of public conversation that Black people have driven on Twitter could be less amplified, could be algorithmically marginalized and that's one of the real risks.

The future of Black Twitter coming up on a word with me Jason Johnson stay with us.

Welcome to a word a podcast about race and politics and everything else. I'm your host Jason Johnson.

Black Twitter is a cultural force. Everything from political movements to comedy routines have emanated from the ability of the black and black affiliated Twitter community to make topics trend.

On the lighter side, it's a great place to share memes, vent during the annual hashtag Thanksgiving clapback and debate which character on insecure was the messiest.

But it has also been a place where black people have organized protests and voter drives share videos that alerted the nation to police brutality and challenge political and social narratives that are laced with racism or other kinds of bias.

But now that tech billionaire Elon Musk owns the site lots of Twitter users of all races expect the hill bring his politics with him.

He worked with Donald Trump in the early days of his presidency and limits his absence from the platform and must test the auto company is a target of years of complaints about a racist work environment where slurs and harassment were the norm and he tolerated it.

So how could the Musk era affect the future of Twitter and black Twitter in particular? Join us to talk about it is Omar Wasso.

He was a pioneer in building internet culture and social media back in the 90s and co founded the black planet social network. He's now an assistant professor of politics at Pomob and a university Omar Wasso welcome to a word.

Thank you so much for having me.

What was your reaction a month ago when you heard that Elon Musk was interested in buying Twitter and then what was your reaction earlier this week when it was like okay look the stockholders have spoken this deals gone through.

So a month ago it all seemed kind of improbable and must has these flights of fancy where he becomes you know he gets into Bitcoin gets out of Bitcoin and so I think I assume this was going to be something that would come and go in a flash and that was not actually likely to happen and.

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