On Thursday morning, Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter to save free speech. “I invested in Twitter because I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech worldwide, and I believe that free speech is a social imperative for a functioning democracy”wrote the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire, who recently acquired a 9.2% stake in Twitter in a filing.
“However, since I made my investment, I now realize that the company will neither thrive nor serve this social imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed into a private company ”.
It is unclear how this move will turn out, but there is also a more fundamental question: what does Elon Musk think is free speech and who is threatening it? Freedom of expression is a cornerstone of an open society and, with governments around the world observing crackdowns on Internet platforms, there is a complicated interplay between different views of what should be allowed online.
But despite his broad statement, Musk’s eye seems almost entirely focused on the much smaller issue of Twitter’s internal rules. In 2011, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo claimed that Twitter belonged “To the free speech wing of the free speech party”a phrase that has been invoked ever since by critics of calls to moderation of the platform.
In the context of that era, the disputes over free speech mainly concerned Twitter’s relations with governments. The platform was gaining acclaim for allowing activists to organize under threat political repression in Egypt and other countries. Costolo bragged about his fight with the US government over the account data related to WikiLeaks, which was under investigation after leaking diplomatic cables.
“The risk of civilization decreases the more we can increase Twitter’s trust”
In a TED interview with Chris Anderson on Thursday, Musk’s concerns were more nebulous and turned almost entirely to Twitter itself. Musk hasn’t shown much appetite for fighting global voice restrictions, noting that “In my opinion, Twitter should comply with the laws of the country”.
Instead, it raised the specter of tweets “Mysteriously promoted and demoted” by Twitter’s sorting algorithm, which Musk says should be made public. (Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also envisioned a version with more transparent algorithmic recommendations.)
“It is really important that people have the reality and the perception of being able to speak freely within the limits of the law”Musk told Anderson. “I think overall, the risk of civilization has decreased the more we can increase Twitter’s trust as a public platform.”
Musk reflected a common assumption that Twitter is one “Town square” which has become the main arbiter of what people can say. But governments around the world still have a say in what is said and how. In the years following Costolo’s comment, laws on online speech proliferated.
Several countries have passed rules on “fake news” which (in theory) should crack down on spreading false information online, and some have threatened to ban platforms they don’t comply with. The European privacy rules have established a “Right to be forgotten” which requires platforms to remove embarrassing information posted online under certain circumstances.
India has implemented a strict legal regime for social media companies, requiring local offices to appoint links to the government and, at one point, raid Twitter offices.
“Twitter is far from the last word on what people say online”
Twitter and converging laws
Even within the United States, which has some of the most lax free speech laws in the world, Twitter moderators aren’t the only power at work. The platform has some of the most flexible standards on adult content for a major social network, but the 2018 FOSTA-SESTA law threatens companies’ legal protections if they allow content related to sex work.
US copyright law enjoys a significant exception to the normal rules that protect platforms from legal liability, which prompted Twitter to do things like remove stolen jokes. The way companies like Twitter interpret these kinds of rules has a huge effect on the livelihoods and creative freedoms of users.
The big tech platforms aren’t just responding to the laws in the United States; they also play a role in the lobby for new ones. Jack Dorsey appeared before Congress multiple times during his tenure as CEO, during which he was asked about how lawmakers should change Section 230, one of the central pillars of online discourse.
Musk hasn’t indicated what role a private Twitter might play recently in these debates and it’s not clear he’s interested. We also don’t know how Musk’s version of Twitter would fare with other digital gatekeepers. If Apple asked him to stop accessing NSFW content (not safe for work) via its iOS app, for example, which prompted Discord and other services to do, would Twitter sit idle?
Far from being better equipped to protect free speech, a Musk-owned Twitter may be in a weaker position than a publicly-owned one. Musk’s involvement in numerous other industries, including telecommunications with Starlink, space travel with SpaceX, and automobiles with Tesla, would give regulators and politicians an added edge to lobby Twitter.
This type of leverage has already been a powerful weapon against highly vertically integrated companies like Apple, which has complied with Chinese censorship and surveillance demands to avoid losing access to a huge market for its hardware. Musk’s businesses have the added wrinkle of often involving government contracts and subsidies, the kind of deal a high-profile moderation struggle could jeopardize.
“A Musk-owned Twitter might as well be more vulnerable to government pressure“
The position of Twitter’s speech has never been as absolutist as Costolo’s comment suggested. Even while he and other employees were still using the phrase, they respected French and German hate speech rules “Keeping hidden” the post neo-Nazis or anti-Semites in those countries.
The company promised it was trying to enforce the rules “In a restricted and transparent way”but “We must respect the laws of the countries in which we operate”, acknowledged Costolo after a French court ordered him to block hateful tweets. If you want to make a profit as a global company, there is a limit to the number of laws you can consistently ignore – there is a reason why many tools for circumventing censorship are open source and non-commercial.
But Costolo at least acknowledged that Twitter was engaging with a much larger world. My colleague Liz Lopatto, meanwhile, rightly framed Musk’s acquisition plans as a virtuoso Twitter troll trying to dominate his favorite toy. And there’s only one enemy a troll truly fears: moderators.
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