If Elon Musk says something everyone listens. He is rich, powerful, influential and known to be quite an innovator. He can make or break fortunes – with a mere tweet he can cause share market prices to come tumbling down. So the idea of Elon Musk building a new social media platform is not an unlikely one. Soon, however, it turned into a discussion about the pros and cons of free speech.
“Would you consider building a new social media platform, @elonmusk?”. Currently, on social media, censoring and propaganda are seen to be some concerning issues
Apparently he is considering this seriously.
70% of the people who took a poll conducted by Musk think that Twitter does not protect free speech the way it should. Considering that Twitter is where people come to air their views, such freedom should be assured, he feels.
'Everyday Astronaut" Tim Dodd had this suggestion. It is a fact that Twitter is populated by bots – fake profiles created to troll, spread propaganda & misinformation.
This handle for social platform accountability believes that social media platforms are about profit; not about providing people with a platform for free speech.
Some feel that there needs to be some sort of regulation /control in place because they feel that freedom of speech cannot be absolute.
It was pointed out that freedom of speech (which should be protected) is different from hate speech (which is punishable).
Twitter removes what it sees as hate speech, misinformation, fake news and so on. Some see this as censorship and a curtailment of the right to free speech.
Often these days, might is right. Powerful forces can promote their agenda and ideology using propaganda and an army of trolls. Soon this dominant narrative becomes ‘truth’.
There is a huge amount of abuse, harassment, hate and trolling on Twitter anyway. It would be even worse without any rules in place.
So Elon Musk believes in free speech? Some think that his words belie his actions.
Musk has been accused of clamping down on unions in his organisations. As such, a lot of commentators thought this was a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
As this commentator points out, a private company has a right to frame and enforce terms of service/rules of use. Such rules do not amount to censorship.
While most people were debating the concept and the limitations of free speech, some suggested that Elon Musk should just buy Twitter and be done with it. Others were excited to see what kind of social media platform Musk would create. And as this tweet says, go ahead and create a platform, Musk literally has more means to this that practically any other single human being. Meanwhile, don’t accuse others of censorship, they told him.
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