Tensions and anxiety reign in the exchanges between Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, and many users anxious to understand how he intends to give substance to his vision of freedom of expression on the influential platform.
On Wednesday, the multi-billionaire assured that the accounts that had been suspended from the social network would not be restored before “a few weeks”, the time to put in place a “clear process”.
He thus ruled out the hypothesis that Donald Trump would return to Twitter a few days before crucial elections in the United States.
The former US president was ousted from the platform shortly after the Capitol stormed in January 2021, accused of calling his supporters to violence.
He has since claimed he would never return to Twitter after launching his own network, Truth Social, to the Confidential Hearing. But many believe that he will be tempted to find his tens of millions of subscribers on the platform which was at the heart of his political communication.
However, Elon Musk had estimated in May that this banishment constituted “a morally bad and insane decision in the extreme”.
The libertarian entrepreneur defends an absolutist vision of freedom of expression, his ultimate motivation for this 44 billion dollar acquisition of the “global public square”.
Since Thursday, he has been blowing hot and cold around the implementation, promising some that the network will not become unlivable, and others that accounts “suspended for minor or questionable reasons will be released from the prison of Twitter” .
“Mixed signals”
Elon Musk wants to form a content moderation council, made up of “representatives with very divergent opinions”. He also claimed to have discussed with several leaders of associations for the defense of minority rights on “how Twitter would continue to fight against hatred and harassment, and to apply its rules on the integrity of elections”.
But the “Twitter hotline operator”, as he renamed himself in his profile, does not seem to satisfy anyone.
“It sends mixed signals,” says Suzanne Nossel, director of Pen America, an association for the defense of freedom of expression. “He is realizing that [la tâche] is more difficult than it appears at first glance.
A collective of nearly 50 associations for the defense of democracy or the fight against disinformation has urged the 20 largest advertisers on Twitter (including Coca-Cola, Google and Disney) to threaten Elon Musk to stop all advertising on the network if ever. it “liquidated” content moderation.
General Motors has already announced that it will temporarily suspend its spending on the platform.
Several NGOs for the defense of minorities, fearing a resurgence of abuse (harassment, racism, misinformation), call for their part the new boss to better police the application.
For some ultra-conservatives, on the contrary, liberalization is not going fast enough. Columnist Benny Johnson is asking Elon Musk to fire Twitter executives who have “censored” certain topics, if he wants to “restore public confidence” in the network.
“Being attacked by both left and right is a good sign,” joked the whimsical leader.
Disinformation
“I think he is convinced that the speeches of the conservatives are censored on Twitter, whereas studies prove that this is not the case”, remarks Suzanne Nossel.
She hopes he will reconsider this false assumption and understand “why we value freedom of expression”, such as the ability to dialogue, persuade and bring out the best ideas.
“When a public square of ideas is drowned in misinformation, when you can no longer separate right and wrong, and people pull away because they can’t find valid information…then the benefits of freedom of expression are disappearing,” she elaborates.
On paper, Elon Musk seems in agreement with this vision.
“Our goal is to make Twitter the most trusted source of information on Earth, regardless of political affiliation,” he said Wednesday, praising the merits of “Birdwatch”, a Twitter program that allows to back up disputed messages from the context written by independent contributors.
The White House thus withdrew a tweet on Wednesday that praised the rise in pensions thanks to Joe Biden, while the background note recalled the role played by a 1972 law on pensions.
But on Sunday, Elon Musk relayed a conspiracy theory about the assault on the husband of Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in Congress. He himself deleted his tweet afterwards.