After Elon Musk took over Twitter with a 44 billion dollar acquisition of the company, he kept promoting that one of his main goals is protecting free speech. Now Elon Musk is revealing things called the “Twitter Files”. The reason why Elon Musk wanted to expose the Twitter Files is to show the corruption the company had in the past and how it is gonna change to include free speech and there is not gonna be suppression against certain people or stories. The reason why these are very important is that it is showing how twitter openly suppressed tweets and people's whole accounts. Some sources such as fox news are stating that it is a breach of the first amendment right because Twitter was asked to do these things by the government itself. Some of these people that were “blacklisted” are talk show host Dan Bongino, conservative activist Charlie Kirk and anti-lockdown campaigner Dr. Jay Bhattacharya who were all censored by Twitter employees for their right-wing viewpoints. The evidence does show that it was not only an inside job done by Jack Dorsey and Vijay Gadde but also the government worked with these people to sensor what we are able to see. Other stories that were blacklisted/ suppressed were the leaked information coming from Hunter Biden's computer, another story that right-wing activists are saying was suppressed by the government.
People who controlled the power to suppress people's accounts were the previous CEO Jack Patrick Dorsey and Vijaya Gadde head of legal, policy, and trust at Twitter were two of the most notable names. The reason why Vijaya Gadde is taking most of the heat is for her comments back in 2018 where she states “And we certainly don't shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology”, with this definitive proof now out there people are now afraid of what other social media companies like Facebook are doing when it comes to censorship or suppression towards certain people and ideas. What is scary is that would this be a violation of our 1st amendment not only suppressing news but not giving people a voice because of tweets they are making.
One thing that is interesting is that are these being used in a wrongful way and not what they are intended for, who knows? Intelligencer New york magazine is saying that Elon Musk is only reporting on these certain incidences to promote right-wing ideas and show how the left is shady and should not be trusted because of such suppression. Only time will tell what these Twitter files will prove and if new information will become public about this case and what actions will be taken because of it.
21 comments:
Twitter is a corporation. No one said they have to be politically neutral. Plus, the sugar-coating of extremism as "free speech" is garbage. Blatantly false information, violence-inciting rhetoric, and harassment should not be tolerated. Even if the first amendment protects free speech, corporations should not tag along under the guise of "free speech." It's time to label it as what is really is: extremism that should have no place on social media.
Allowing "free speech" on such widespread platforms like Twitter can have disastrous consequences. Previously, individuals have used freedom of speech to justify spreading misinformation, racism, homophobia, etc. If you look up many of the individuals who have been blocked on Twitter over the years, they weren't blocked because of their political ideologies. They were blocked/"blacklisted" because they created harm and spread false information to the general public.
Dan Bongino was banned from YouTube after continuously posting misinformation about COVID-19. Would it be a great idea to let him openly post/spread false information to millions of Twitter users?
Twitter in it of itself is a crazy pandemonium of chaos with all the stuff posted there, but as it's been said, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of such expressions. Spreading fake and crazy garbage is obviously bad and that should be quelled as much as possible to prevent disasters from occurring. Not to mention, I've heard quite a few funky things about Twitter after Elon got it, from allowing lots of stuff to run rampant, to banning people who hurt his feelings, to people impersonating companies and causing billion dollar losses. Regardless, free speech can indeed be a double edged sword should it fall into the wrong hands.
I agree with Ben's sentiment. The ridiculous guise of "free speech" will further polarize the citizens of a world already polarized by social media. Those who don't believe in Musk's deceptive words will continue to lose confidence in the other side of the spectrum, and those who do believe the guise will continue to think that they are martyrs (because conservative speech is oh-so censored on social media) for freedom. Both sides think they're correct, but sadly because Musk is the owner of twitter, there isn't much we can do other than criticize his actions and hopefully make others aware that he really isn't some flawless supporter of free speech.
I believe that what Elon Musk is doing with the release of the Twitter files along with exposing the inside antics of the company is an important step in bringing transparency to our vast private media networks. Having CEOs and tech executives pretend they are some morally higher “middle ground” is a disgrace to the American public. If Twitter and other networks had innate biases away from “political neutrality” as Ben comments, they should be open about them. Private corporations are allowed to deviate away from political neutrality, but not owning up to it is an injustice to the users. It is clear that much of the “free speech” that has been mentioned has been dangerous, and received well-deserved bans. But, as we progress into the future, away from faulty claims of election insecurity, no one political ideology should govern what misinformation is. Unfortunately, this was the path Twitter was on. I believe in this current political climate, that goal could be muddled, but overall should be viewed as a positive to the truths of American society.
I think the main issue stems from the blur between "free speech" and hate speech. Should a company like Twitter be controlling what goes on their site even if it's false information, or should they let everything go through and users decide what to believe in? I understand the sentiment of banning objectively hateful content such as racism and sexism, but once the door is opened for banning one type of content, more can be banned. This is the issue the Twitter files have exposed, as the company tried to hide different groups like conservative activists and public figures. While I do not support hate speech and extremist content on social media, media censorship from a large tech company like Twitter can take it too far and as a result, become the judge and the executor of censorship.
I agree with Christien in which I wonder where the line drawn between "free speech" vs hate speech is. Twitter is known to be a media outlet for people to openly voice their opinions and thoughts with no restraint. The social media outlet isn't unfamiliar with out of pocket comments but I think that exposing the former companies ban on activists and public figures does show transparency in a good light. However, I don't agree that hiding behind the term "Free speech" is the way to entail that harassment, misinformation, hate, homophobia, racism, and more is okay to be tolerated in an extremely public and popular site. Twitter shouldn't just allow anyone to say whatever they want with no possible consequences. Something that is Free Speech can also be hate speech.
I believe that Elon Musk has been constantly spurting out random things. Due to his power, no one wants to make a direct accusation against Elon Musk, not even the president. And Twitter has had constant problems, one being the fact that anyone was able to be verified, which caused many companies to lose a ton of money. But having this "free speech" on Twitter will be a significant problem. It will create this circle of fake news, along with allowing the ability to have harmful comments. Twitter should control what people say, and it should not give complete power to the people.
Putting restrictions on what people say on Twitter is not a restriction of free speech. People are still free to say what they want, they just can't use Twitter's platform to do it. Twitter is a corporation and can do what they want. Additionally, misinformation presented as facts by a public figure on social media can be very dangerous. There are limitations to free speech and spreading misinformation can fall under those limitations, especially when they come from trusted officials (to some people). I feel like Musk has a very closed mind and a large ego. He stated he would protect free speech and now he doesn't want to go back on his word, yet he doesn't actually understand how free speech works or what the dangers of it can be.
Ben brings up a strong point about its important to remember that Twitter is a private corporation, and has no reason to stay politically neutral, or endorse or support all ideas. However, the way that Elon Musk is portraying everything is as free-speech is incorrect. Like in the court case Schenck V United States, the freedom around speech is not absolute, and has its limits. Hate and offensive speech is hard to define, but the language and posts that are being spread around Twitter can be easily identified as misinformation, radical, and possibly violence inciting.
To be more specific, So far, the majority of the material has concentrated on what are effectively two extremely high-stakes individual moderation decisions, one widely regarded as an error in hindsight (hiding stories about Biden's laptop), and the other exactly as divisive as anyone could have predicted beforehand (Trump's ban).
I believe it is critical to distinguish between the Twitter files and the "Twitter Files." The latter, a large, hyped-up, coordinated publication, has so far failed to meet its stated objectives. The overarching theme of the exercise is that Twitter is a hotbed of leftwing bias, openly aligned with the US Democratic Party, and taking unjustified action to censor speech for political reasons.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/13/techscape-twitter-files-elon-musk
I find it interesting that a big argument is "free speech". yes its the governments job to protect that right but twitter is a private company. users agree to terms and conditions, because it is a private company and app I do believe that gives it the right to censor what it wants to. if thats viewed as unfair than that platform may not be the right fit for some people. i believe they have complete right to censor what they deem fit spicily when it comes to hate speech and missimfiomation. but even aside from that its a private company that users willing join there for censorship is completely in its right.
Twitter is a company. Firstly, they can take down information if they want. There is no obligation for them to allow everything and anything to be shared (although Elon Musk might disagree). It is also just completely incorrect to say that censoring or taking down some content is a violation of First Amendment rights. There are limits to the First Amendment. Schenck v. United States in 1919 established this precedent -- you can't yell fire in a movie theater. False, divisive, and potentially dangerous information needs to be taken down. Much of the January 6 riot was planned on social media and based off of false claims of a rigged election.
All these people talk about having their freedom of speech restricted by twitter, even though twitter is in it's own right to do whatever it wants. It is a corporation, and by its own freedom of speech can do what ever it wants, including censoring anything they want. Everything Elon Musk is digging up, while it might be political motivated, has no legal consequences. Everything the company did was within its power.
I agree with everyone Especially the argument Christian brought up that hate speech should have no platform at all the line between free speech and hate speech is often crossed. I also believe that this situation happening it gives republicans a reason to argue and gives these allegations because they were censored and many of those people who were censored were for good reason like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya who was shadowbanned for anti-lockdown and covid and with his message getting out to the larger masses could have put many people at risk and caused them to get exposed to covid during a time where there was no vaccine yet to protect us.
I find it interesting how Elon Musk promises that with him in charge he will disallow the the discrimination of conservatives that had their account blocked from Twitter, but allowing his so-called "Free Speech" would just allow more and more people to comment or post something regarding their opinions is not going to be good because there are so many haters out there that are waiting for this chance to talk bad about a politician or just want to complain about something without enough evidence, which is just going to cause a lot more rumors going around, and then Twitter would be a laughing stock because Elon Musk has created a platform of complaints from opinionated people that just want to cause trouble.
The situation with Twitter is exposing a truth which many people don't realize - platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and any others are private companies and can do as they see fit with how they run their platforms, which angers people on all sides of the political spectrum in one way or another. People who advocate for complete free speech on these platforms will be disappointed to learn these platforms have no legal obligation to provide that. If these platforms turned into places with hate speech or havens for blatantly false information, this would turn off advertisers who provide the revenue which these companies depend on. Thus, it would prove problematic for social media companies if they turned a blind eye to the more egregious content some users post. Others who advocate for restricting harmful speech, or blatantly false content, may not be happy if they feel these platforms are not doing enough in these areas, as these platforms will try to appear neutral in this area and to have the appearance of allowing free speech and not engaging in censorship, which will entail allowing some amount of speech many people will find offensive, or which is false. There is no perfect answer here and these are problems which will likely be solved in different ways at different platforms. As Mark Zuckerberg famously said, his company "shouldn't be the arbitrator of truth." At some point, there may be some legislation in the US to deal with this, but getting congress to agree on how to legislate what information and speech is allowed on these types of platforms seems like a long shot, and could see constitutional challenges, so I suspect we will continue to see a myriad of approaches here on different platforms.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/28/zuckerberg-facebook-police-online-speech-trump
The argument by the far-right that their ideas are being suppressed is flawed. While the notion of being barred from presenting political opinions is an action that sends many into a fury, I think people forget that some of these opinions don't just revolve around politics-- sometimes they are just downright racist, homophobic, and blatantly ignorant. As a social media outlet, obviously, these sights are going to block hate from spreading; that isn't blocking "free speech," that is just protecting the sight from useless hate and bigotry.
The involvement of the government in moderation decisions has not been clearly established, and until it has been, the Twitter files are just bad, bad journalism of cherry-picking things out of context. Government pressure to remove subjective opinion content would not be OK, but there still isn't evidence of that happening.
Now of course, government law enforcement agencies have made takedown requests and these are AFAICT routine and worthwhile, e.g. child exploitation and threats. Conservative media went berserk when they heard that Biden's campaign team had been in contact with Twitter, but they forgot that he wasn't President or part of the government at that point, and it's entirely reasonable for the Biden team to request that pictures of Hunter Biden's private parts not be in circulation, and for them to have a direct point of contact with Twitter, given that they were a huge target for trolls who were violating Twitter policy and that leaving bogus material online would have greater consequences for a presidential candidate with an audience of millions than for a regular citizen.
A later installment of the Twitter files purported to show how it was unfair that Trump was kicked off Twitter after using it to sic a violent mob on Mike Pence and then refusing to call off the insurrection. Twitter policy didn't cover that scenario, so they debated it for a while before pulling the plug. Anyone complaining about that decision is and enormous and dangerous idiot, as if Twitter policy was inflexible law and that the platform should be available for people to facilitate crimes against the state. It's bad enough that Trump had a megaphone to spread his election conspiracies for months -- no one has a right to amplification through a privately owned platform.
"Freedom of speech, not freedom of reach." All these people complaining about being censored have been able to get their message out to the public through other channels, yet feel entitled to having the Twitter algorithm continue to reward their strategy of misinformation.
Elon Musk has been commenting on and retweeting overt racists, winking at Q, and amplifying senior Russian officials joking about the end of the United States. He questioned whether Paul Pelosi had been attacked by a right wing loon, which shows that he is consuming propaganda and not able to tell, or that he is deliberately spreading vile propaganda and only taking it back when there is sufficient outrage.
Leaders in Silicon Valley who hold Musk up as a classic entrepreneur without noticing or caring that he is racist and transphobic are the worst kind of hypocrites, claiming to believe in meritocracy but acting like oligarch wanna-bes cheering on plutocratic control of media. People who take the Twitter files as proof of conservative silencing are looking to play the victim card and should be ignored with extreme prejudice. Conservative and right wing messaging flows through Twitter and other sources, powered by billions in political spending, and they aren't the victims of anything except their own hubris.
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