Elon Musk’s ‘free speech’ focus could turn Twitter into a ‘cesspool’: experts
Global News
Elon Musk wants Twitter to be a haven for free speech, but the social media platform has been down this road before and it didn't end well.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is spending US$44 billion to acquire Twitter with the stated aim of turning it into a haven for “free speech.”
There’s just one problem: The social platform has been down this road before, and it didn’t end well.
A decade ago, a Twitter executive dubbed the company “the free speech wing of the free speech party” to underscore its commitment to untrammeled freedom of expression.
Subsequent events put that moniker to the test, as repressive regimes cracked down on Twitter users, particularly in the wake of the short-lived “Arab Spring” demonstrations.
In the U.S., a visceral 2014 article by journalist Amanda Hess exposed the incessant, vile harassment many women faced just for posting on Twitter or other online forums.
Over the subsequent years, Twitter learned a few things about the consequences of running a largely unmoderated social platform — one of the most important being that companies generally don’t want their ads running against violent threats, hate speech that bleeds into incitement, and misinformation that aims to tip elections or undermine public health.
“With Musk, his posturing of free speech — just leave everything up — that would be bad in and of itself,” said Paul Barrett, the deputy director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University.
“If you stop moderating with automated systems and human reviews, a site like Twitter, in the space of a short period of time, you would have a cesspool.”
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