Taking Twitter To The Free Speech Moon Won’t Be Easy For Elon Musk

Taking Twitter To The Free Speech Moon Won’t Be Easy For Elon Musk

Regardless of where someone falls on the ‘did we go to the Moon’ debate, going to the Moon is now far more of a realistic proposition. SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others are making great strides in this respect and it is easy to see that, one day, trips to the Moon and even farther afield will likely happen. Social media is a completely different ball game, however, and one that is harder to see clearer paths forward. The early days of social media was far more of an open place than it is today, with users previously able to mostly post what they wanted, when they wanted. As time went on, and issues arose, the need for moderation became all the more obvious. This is not just something that affects political topics and divides, but the comments section of any website. In reality, there has to be some form of moderation so the question then becomes, how much moderation is too much?
That’s a far more difficult question to answer and especially within a free speech context. It’s not just harder to answer here now in an article, but also for Musk to answer and ultimately solve. If Musk, and whichever team is involved in making moderation decisions in the future, decides on no moderation whatsoever, then the platform is likely to find itself facing a different set of problems, including both legal and advertiser-based issues. Like it or not, advertising is a big deal for Twitter, and keeping advertisers happy is something every platform and most websites are now trying to do. No moderation at all would almost certainly and greatly impact on advertiser revenue. Of course, one way around this could be to remove advertising altogether. With elements like Twitter Blue already available, it is possible the platform could move to a 100 percent subscription-based revenue system. Still, that might not help with any legal issues that could arise from zero moderation, something that Musk is very much aware of.

By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.
I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.
If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.
Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2022

At the same time, any sort of moderation is likely to be seen as impacting on free speech to some degree. At the very least, any form of moderation means someone, or some AI, deciding what is and isn’t a breach of those rules and guidelines. It is probably fair to assume that Musk himself won’t be deciding on a case-by-case basis, but then who will? More AI solutions that are already seen as discriminatory in one way or another, or teams of humans who inevitably come with their own biases and preferences? This is the issue with moderation in general and one that no platform has been able to effectively solve yet. Although some may see current solutions as biased towards one group, there’s no reason to assume things will be any different in the near future, and irrespective of who owns a platform like Twitter. In fact, this is why Musk has suggested open-sourcing the algorithm to begin with – “to increase trust” through transparency in the existing algorithm. Yes, it is possible that by being open-sourced, others may be able to contribute to help make the algorithm less biased in the future. However, that’s one of the current unknowns, not one of the guaranteed outcomes of Musk owning Twitter.
For better or worse, the reality is that moderation is not only something that’s required in 2022 and beyond, but something that has proven extremely difficult to master and will regardless of who is at the helm of Twitter, Facebook, or any other popular platform. While Musk may get humans (and possibly even Doge) to the Moon one day, getting Twitter there is going to prove a lot harder, if not impossible.
Source: Twitter, Elon Musk/Twitter

#Twitter #Free #Speech #Moon #Wont #Easy #Elon #Musk

Taking Twitter To The Free Speech Moon Won’t Be Easy For Elon Musk

Regardless of where someone falls on the ‘did we go to the Moon’ debate, going to the Moon is now far more of a realistic proposition. SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others are making great strides in this respect and it is easy to see that, one day, trips to the Moon and even farther afield will likely happen. Social media is a completely different ball game, however, and one that is harder to see clearer paths forward. The early days of social media was far more of an open place than it is today, with users previously able to mostly post what they wanted, when they wanted. As time went on, and issues arose, the need for moderation became all the more obvious. This is not just something that affects political topics and divides, but the comments section of any website. In reality, there has to be some form of moderation so the question then becomes, how much moderation is too much?
That’s a far more difficult question to answer and especially within a free speech context. It’s not just harder to answer here now in an article, but also for Musk to answer and ultimately solve. If Musk, and whichever team is involved in making moderation decisions in the future, decides on no moderation whatsoever, then the platform is likely to find itself facing a different set of problems, including both legal and advertiser-based issues. Like it or not, advertising is a big deal for Twitter, and keeping advertisers happy is something every platform and most websites are now trying to do. No moderation at all would almost certainly and greatly impact on advertiser revenue. Of course, one way around this could be to remove advertising altogether. With elements like Twitter Blue already available, it is possible the platform could move to a 100 percent subscription-based revenue system. Still, that might not help with any legal issues that could arise from zero moderation, something that Musk is very much aware of.

By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.
I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.
If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.
Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2022

At the same time, any sort of moderation is likely to be seen as impacting on free speech to some degree. At the very least, any form of moderation means someone, or some AI, deciding what is and isn’t a breach of those rules and guidelines. It is probably fair to assume that Musk himself won’t be deciding on a case-by-case basis, but then who will? More AI solutions that are already seen as discriminatory in one way or another, or teams of humans who inevitably come with their own biases and preferences? This is the issue with moderation in general and one that no platform has been able to effectively solve yet. Although some may see current solutions as biased towards one group, there’s no reason to assume things will be any different in the near future, and irrespective of who owns a platform like Twitter. In fact, this is why Musk has suggested open-sourcing the algorithm to begin with – “to increase trust” through transparency in the existing algorithm. Yes, it is possible that by being open-sourced, others may be able to contribute to help make the algorithm less biased in the future. However, that’s one of the current unknowns, not one of the guaranteed outcomes of Musk owning Twitter.
For better or worse, the reality is that moderation is not only something that’s required in 2022 and beyond, but something that has proven extremely difficult to master and will regardless of who is at the helm of Twitter, Facebook, or any other popular platform. While Musk may get humans (and possibly even Doge) to the Moon one day, getting Twitter there is going to prove a lot harder, if not impossible.
Source: Twitter, Elon Musk/Twitter

#Twitter #Free #Speech #Moon #Wont #Easy #Elon #Musk