[ad_1]
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, spends $44 billion to turn Twitter into a “freedom of speech” haven. There’s only one problem: The social platform has been down this road before and it didn’t end well.
Ten years ago, a Twitter executive named the company the “free speech wing of the free speech party” to emphasize its commitment to unrestricted freedom of speech. Subsequent events have tested this moniker, as repressive regimes cracked down on Twitter users, particularly in the wake of the short-lived “Arab Spring” demonstrations. In the US, an instinctive article by journalist Amanda Hess in 2014 revealed the relentless, despicable harassment many women face simply because they post on Twitter or other online forums.
In the years that followed, Twitter learned a few things about the consequences of running a largely unmoderated social platform – one of the most important being that companies often don’t want their ads to run against violent threats, incitement to hate speech, and misinformation. aiming to cloud elections or undermine public health.
“With Musk, the stance on freedom of speech – put everything aside – that would be bad in itself,” said Paul Barrett, deputy director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University. “If you stop managing with automated systems and human reviews, a site like Twitter will soon have a cesspool.”
Barrett noted that Google quickly learned this lesson when large companies like Toyota and Anheuser-Busch pulled their ads in 2015 after they got in front of YouTube videos made by extremists.
Once it became clear just how unhealthy the conversation had become, Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey spent years improving what he called the “health” of conversation on the platform.
The company was one of the first to implement the “report abuse” button after UK member of parliament Stella Creasy received a string of rape and death threats on the platform. The online harassment was the result of a seemingly positive tweet in support of feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, who successfully advocated for novelist Jane Austen to appear on a British bill. Creasy’s online abuser was jailed for 18 weeks.
Twitter has continued to invest in staff and technology, creating rules that detect violent threats, harassment, and misinformation that violates its policies. Social media companies have also stepped up their efforts to counter political misinformation after evidence emerged that Russia was using their platform to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election.
The question now is how much Musk, who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist,” is willing to take back these systems, and whether users and advertisers will remain loyal if he does.
Even now, Americans say they are more likely to be harassed on social media than other online forums, where women, people of color, and LGBTQ users report a disproportionate amount of abuse. According to a Pew Research Center survey of US adults last year, nearly 80% of users still believe companies are only doing a “fair or bad” job of addressing this harassment.
Meanwhile, terms like “censorship” and “freedom of speech” have turned into political rallying cries for conservatives frustrated by the fact that right-wing commentators and high-profile Republican officials have been kicked off Facebook and Twitter for violating their rules.
Musk appeared to be criticizing Twitter’s permanent ban on President Donald Trump last year over messages the tech company said helped provoke the January 6 riot at the US Capitol last year.
“Many people will be very unhappy with West Coast hi-tech as the de facto arbiter of free speech,” Musk said days after Trump was banned from both Facebook and Twitter.
Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. His allies, including Mr. Musk, even begged Musk to buy the company.
“If Elon Musk can send people privately into space, I’m sure he can design a bias-free social network,” Trump Jr. said in the caption of a video posted on Instagram last April.
Kirsten Martin, professor of technology ethics at the University of Notre Dame, said Twitter is constantly working to be a “responsible” social media company through its moderation system, its employees in the machine learning ethics field and those they give permission to. Do your research on the platform. The fact that Musk wants to change this shows that he focuses on “irresponsible social media”.
Twitter declined to comment on this news. A representative for Musk did not immediately respond to a message for comment.
New social media apps targeting conservatives, including Trump’s Truth Social, have not come close to the success of Facebook or Twitter. This is partly because Republican politicians, politicians and lawsuits are attracting large audiences on already existing and much better established platforms.
It’s also partly due to the flood of provocative, false or violent posts. For example, right-wing social media site Parler was nearly wiped out last year when it was revealed that rebels used the app to spread violent messages and organize the January 6 siege of the US Capitol. Apple and Google banned the app from their online stores, while Amazon stopped providing web hosting services for the site.
Musk regularly blocks social media users who criticize him or his company, and sometimes bullies reporters who write critical articles about him or Tesla. He regularly tweets to reporters who write about his company, sometimes describing his work as “false” or “misleading.”
Popular tweets typically send a mass of social media fans directly to reporters’ accounts to harass them for hours or days.
“I only block people out as direct insults,” Musk said in response to a tweet from a reporter in 2020.
Evan Greer, political activist for Fight for the Future, said Musk’s lack of experience in managing an effective social media platform would be a problem should he successfully take over the company.
“If we want to protect freedom of expression online, then we can’t live in a world where the richest person in the world can buy a platform that millions of people depend on and change the rules at will,” Greer said.
[ad_2]
Source link