Everyone loves free speech. Especially their own.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest human and a prolific Twitter user, proudly calls himself a zealot for “free speech,” which takes on special meaning now that he apparently has sealed a $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter and take the company private. His famously flamboyant fascination with the social network’s power is facing mounting questions about what he really has in mind — and how it will square with the social, political and legal realities of a world that already likes to think of Twitter as if it belonged to them — or should.
Issue one: “Free speech” is a virtue with about as many definitions as people who claim to believe in it.
Many of those on the right who cheer his rise hope he will sweep out the liberal bias they discern on such platforms. Many others on the left fear he will rescind all restraints on hate speech and unleash harassment, disinformation (pandemic and otherwise) and impolite tweeters who have been suspended or banished from the site.
Exhibit A is the unofficial former tweeter-in-chief, former President Donald Trump, who has been banned permanently from the network since January 2021.
As is his fashion, Musk has been mum about the details of his outlook, except for such intriguing tidbits as this tweet on April 26: “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.”
Ah, if only the matter was that simple. For one thing, the law as spelled out in the First Amendment bars government, literally Congress, from intruding on free press or free speech, among other rights. It does not apply to judgments made by a private editor, moderator or publisher.
Censorship by common definition occurs when the government imposes limits on the speech of people under its power. Free speech is your ability to say what you want without worrying about government intrusion except for such harmful and/or criminal examples as libel, slander, hate speech, harassment, intimidation or other special cases under constant court review.
Basically, once ownership is transferred to him, Musk is free to say or allow what he wants on the site, until he gets sued.
If he lets Twitter’s content degrade into a digital cesspool that no one wants to use, that would be a bad business development, not a constitutional crisis.
While it is hard to say what Musk will do until he does it, his fans have high hopes and his detractors are looking for ways to clip his wings.
Republicans and other conservatives have charged social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with bias for taking down tweets, canceling some accounts, and tagging others with warning notices.
Musk hasn’t said whether he will allow Trump’s return, and Trump, who started a social network of his own called TruthSocial, has claimed that he doesn’t want to return anyway. True or not, his stance protects him from the indignity of not being asked.
But Musk himself was outspoken on another justifiable bone of GOP contention: Twitter’s limiting, along with Facebook, of the distribution of a New York Post story shortly before the 2020 election that claimed to show “smoking gun” emails about then-Democratic nominee Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
“Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,” Musk tweeted Tuesday evening, perhaps forgetting prohibitions in his purchase deal against his posting tweets that “disparage” the social network or its employees.
At the time, Twitter’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, apologized for Twitter’s action, calling its treatment of the New York Post story “unacceptable.” The Federal Election Commission latter ruled that Twitter acted lawfully and made a valid decision based on commercial, not political reasons.
That did little, if anything, to soothe the outrage or ease the suspicions of skeptical Republicans, among other conservatives. But the political right has no monopoly on such digital-age discontents. For example, days before Musk’s deal was announced, former President Barack Obama warned in a speech at Stanford University that social media are “tilting us in the wrong direction.”
“All we see is a constant feed of content, where useful, factual information and happy diversions flow alongside lies, conspiracy theories, junk science, quackery, racist tracts and misogynist screeds,” he said.
He also talked extensively about how the design and features of technology services can be manipulated too easily.
If that sounds to you like a lead-in to a call for more regulation of internet content, you’re right.
“If we do nothing, I am convinced that the trends we are seeing will get worse,” Obama said. “Without some standards, the implications of this technology for our elections, for our legal system, for our democracy, for rules of evidence, for our entire social order, are frightening and profound.”
What kind of regulations does he have in mind? Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham may have given a hint in an April 21 tweet.
In it, she urged the European Union to pass its proposed Digital Services Act to stop the spread of “disinformation” and “extremism” online.
The DSA, which will hold search engines, social media networks, and marketplaces accountable for policing content on their sites as early as 2024, has been denounced by free speech advocates. But, without protections like those offered by the First Amendment, EU leaders are quite likely to use DSA to claw back whatever power they think the internet has taken from them.
If enacted, that’s another potential headache for Musk and other America-based platforms that do business overseas, which they all do.
Meanwhile, as much as Europeans may want to tighten controls on internet commerce, some Americans want to roll them back.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, has introduced a bill to abolish Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the 1996 law that gives more protection from liability to online platforms than any old-style media — including this newspaper — enjoy. Titled the 21st Century FREE Speech Act, her bill would prevent online platforms from exerting “undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, class of persons, political or religious group or affiliation, or locality.”
Translation: The bill is aimed to corral online bias against conservatives, which, whether Greene realizes it or not, probably would provide consumers with just as much power to sue against perceived bias against liberals.
Welcome aboard and happy sailing, Mr. Musk. We’ll be watching with interest.
