On October 27th 2022, SpaceX owner Elon Musk officially became the CEO of Twitter. In a controversy filled saga, Musk became Twitter owner amidst lots of back and forth about whether or not this move was a beneficial one to Twitter and its users worldwide. A move which I believe will prove and has already started to prove itself useful.
Staying True To His Word?
Musk said that he got involved “To help humanity” improve Free Speech. Many commentators on the left and right reacted in a hostile manner to Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Musk however believes “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.” Therefore, one must ask why he believes he needed to “help humanity” as he puts it. Well, for a matter of years now the cancel culture that we, as users of the internet, experience has arguably run rampant. Often cancelling users that do not deserve to be silenced in the manner they have. Notorious examples would include Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, and most notably, US President Donald Trump, who was cancelled while he was still in office. However, some may argue that the names mentioned above did indeed break Twitter’s community guidelines, and with Twitter being a private company then it is within their prerogative to cancel whoever they want. With that said, the argument is not about whether or not Twitter has the right to cancel them or not. The argument is about Twitter having too much power on controlling an influencer’s, well, influence.
For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, scientists were censored on Twitter and other social media platforms. Some of them are not only experts in their field but had influence which I would argue is why they were censored. Dr Peter McCullough and Dr Robert Malone were suspended from Twitter for expressing opinions against Covid-19 restrictions like Lockdowns and Masking. Even, advising caution with regards to the vaccines that treated Covid-19. I am not necessarily saying that everything they said was correct, nor am I saying that everything that was said against their arguments was wrong. However, censoring scientists who are experts in their field when a pandemic is going on does not sound democratic, moral, or liberal in any way. For further context, Dr McCullough is the most cited cardiologist in the world and Dr Malone is one of the inventors of the mRNA vaccine technology.
For the last few years, there has always been this notion on the right side of politics that conservative commentators get censored and cancelled disproportionately compared to the left wing. Many media outlets labelled this as conspiracy without evidence. Former Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey and former Head of Legal Counsel, Vijaya Gadde, frequently denied these accusations. Until now. With Elon Musk’s promise to restore free speech on the platform and challenge cancel culture, barrels of legal documents from within Twitter have been coming out. “The Twitter Files”, as they’ve been nicknamed, are showing evidence of how Twitter was indeed colluding with the Democratic National Convention during the 2020 US Presidential Election. It is now confirmed that Twitter censored, willingly, a story published by The New York Post regarding a scandal within the Biden family. This story was released and immediately censored late October 2020. This could mean that this censorship likely affected the result of the election. Musk, has been releasing this information by leaking it deliberately to two journalists, Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss. The fact that this news has not made it into an international scandal by now, makes one think that the media may not be telling the full truth. It brings into question the trustworthiness of the media as an institution.
In Conclusion
If we are to analyse a bit what is going on around us with the development of technology and social media and the metaverse. Musk’s opinion that Twitter is a digital town square is indeed factual. Nowadays Twitter is the place where people share their opinions, as opposed to in the street. Therefore, Musk is correct in advocating for free speech on Twitter just as we do in advocating free speech anywhere else.
This article was written by an independent writer whose views are not associated with The Third Eye. The Third Eye strives to be the student’s voice, and that entails giving them a platform to voice their opinions.