Barring a major twist, the boss of Tesla and SpaceX will become the owner of a platform that has become central to the political life of democracies and the daily life of tens of millions of people. He has sketched his vision in broad strokes – to increase trust in a network “essential to the future of civilization” and “unlock its potential” – but some of his goals are worrying.
At a time when Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and their competitors are accused of contributing to the spread of disinformation, the radicalization of sections of society and, ultimately, violence in real life, Elon Musk believes on the contrary that speech is not free enough on the network of tweets.
“When in doubt, let the tweet exist” is how he summed up his approach to content moderation during an interview, following nevertheless acknowledging that there are limits imposed by law to freedom of expression. “We should be very reluctant to remove things or suspend users permanently,” he detailed.
This vision is applauded by American conservatives, in particular supporters of former US President Donald Trump, banned from Twitter for inciting violence, following several warnings and tweets withdrawn.
“Far West”
But for Jessica Gonzalez, co-director of the NGO Free Press, liberalizing moderation risks “making the platform even more toxic”. Elon Musk often uses his profile with 84 million subscribers to make fun of people who disagree with him, even insult them, like this British speleologist whom he had described as a “pedo guy”.
A Musk-controlled Twitter is hardly a victory for free speech, said Kyla Garrett-Wagner, professor of communications law at Syracuse University. “It’s the Wild West, controlled by an elite that doesn’t represent minority voices.” “Users are going to have to deal with unpleasant and even dangerous messages,” she added.
And beyond ethical concerns, leaving users to fend for themselves will not necessarily be successful: “As soon as you remove the referees, the game can become brutal. Many people will no longer want to play”, summarizes John Wihbey, media specialist at Northeastern University and former Twitter consultant. The responsibility for policing exchanges can also fall on advertisers, concerned that their advertisements are not backed by problematic content.
“They must make it clear that they will leave the platform if it turns into a rat race where hatred, extremism and misinformation thrive,” urged Angelo Carusone, director of the NGO Media Matters for America.
“Epiphany”
Elon Musk promised to rid Twitter of spam, authenticate users and increase transparency, instead of tweets being “mysteriously promoted or demoted without knowing what’s going on”. On paper, these ambitions please everyone, starting with the current leaders of the Californian company. But that’s easier said than done, experts point out. Transparency will not “cause an epiphany” among users, “who don’t even read the rules” before accepting them, laughs Kyla Garrett-Wagner. “It’s like the labels on cigarette packs, people still smoke.”
Same argument once morest the “open source algorithms” wanted by the whimsical entrepreneur: “it’s not a bad idea in itself, that everyone can see the computer code”, admits the independent analyst Rob Enderle, “but most people don’t know how to code. So it’s mostly going to create controversy and friction.” Paradoxically, the boss who has pledged $21 billion of his personal fortune to buy the “public place” seems to envision an open and decentralized future for the platform.
A vision a priori close to that of the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey. At the end of 2019, he had created a small independent team called “Bluesky” (“blue sky”), responsible for designing new computer protocols capable of responding to the challenges of networks (disinformation, hatred, etc.) in a decentralized way. But be careful not to go too fast, warn many specialists, like the author Chris Bail, who called on Elon Musk to “preserve the tradition of Twitter in terms of conscientious empirical research and sharing of results”.