Soon after the deal to buy Twitter, Musk said that he will protect the right to free speech—which apparently remained under check due to the regulations and the norms—and one more thing which he stated was about honouring humans than bots. Bots are fake accounts which do not belong to any individual and are frequently used for trolling and launching social media hate campaigns as they also generate a good number of Tweets at one particular time. The second part of his statement was appreciated and was termed the key to ensuring a transparent, genuine social media platform across the globe. However, the second part was not only vague but was also criticised and questioned by almost everyone. Amnesty International also reacted and raised hate speech concerns.
Defending free speech over Twitter, Musk needs to understand, is going to be quite tricky and challenging. People spreading hate speech will also talk of free speech, which will let their campaigns grow without any censorship as per the law. By Musk’s free speech statement, he has opened Pandora’s Box even as a section of society is celebrating the about-to-happen move of making Twitter free from all forms of regulations. If that happened, the same is going to be destructive, total anarchy in a digital space.
Musk also needs to understand that there are separate laws governing the regulations of social media in every country around the world. For example in India, as per the new IT Act, social media platforms have to act no matter the directions of the Government. Now, if a tweet catches the eye of the Government which takes on Twitter to delete the same, which it has to, what is Musk going to do then? What will happen to free speech then?
There is a need for the rich Elon Musk to understand that the problem with Twitter is humanitarian and is way beyond engineering. It has nothing got to with algorithms; rather, it is something beyond that. There is a need for going ahead by making Twitter more effective, ensuring that the new Twitter under Musk honours the real humans and works for making their lives better with every passing day.
