It has been in the news as of late that Elon Musk, self-proclaimed “free speech abolitionist” and the richest man on the planet, will be purchasing social media platform Twitter (Perrigo). Musk’s decision to pursue ownership of Twitter is a reflection of the growing conservative dissent with how social media platforms choose to moderate and regulate speech on their platforms. Though this opposition had been growing among conservative crowds for years, it reached a climax following President Trump’s permanent ban from Twitter in early 2021 due to his tweets regarding the storming of the United States Capitol. Since then, conservatives have shouted claims of censorship and oppression, declaring that social media sites like Twitter are abusing their power through moderating speech on their platforms. As Musk himself tweeted on March 26, 2022, “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy.” However, what Musk and conservatives alike fail to consider is the inability for Twitter to function properly as a ‘de facto’ public square without moderating its user’s speech, particularly for misinformation. This is because misinformation spreads rapidly on the platform, due to features such as retweeting, which allows users to reshare others’ tweets to their own followers within seconds. Therefore despite these cries of censorship from conservatives, Twitter’s controversial decision to ban Donald Trump from their site demonstrates the necessity of the social media giant to find effective ways of containing misinformation in order to create an environment where global political speech can thrive.
Though Twitter has faced criticism from conservatives for its increased restrictions on speech that can be posted on the platform, this is not censorship. Accepting this fact is key to understanding the dynamic of regulating content on social media. The First Amendment only protects the right to free speech from interference by the government. Therefore, private companies like Twitter do not have to abide by the amendment. In addition to this, there are further laws that protect social media companies in their choices to regulate content. Within the Communications Decency Act of 1996, there is a provision called Section 230 that is relevant for protecting digital speech. Section 230 states “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider” (“Telecommunications Act of 1996”). This provision essentially protects sites like Twitter or Facebook from being held legally responsible for the content generated and shared by their users. However, this is not the only function of Section 230. The provision also protects companies against legal repercussions for “any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected” (“Telecommunications Act of 1996”). To put it simply, the provision encourages Twitter and other sites to moderate content they find offensive without being liable for what they do, or do not, choose to remove. Consequently, it is not possible for sites like Twitter to ‘censor’ anyone, despite what is believed by conservative groups. Legally, they are protected in their decisions to moderate and ban users in any way they see fit. The ability of social media companies to moderate and restrict users’ speech became even more relevant in response to Twitter’s banning of Trump.
Donald Trump and his use of Twitter was a frequently discussed topic during all four years of his presidency from 2016 to 2020. Though it was Trump’s violation of Twitter’s Glorification of Violence policy through his tweets about the Capitol Raid that led to his ban, Trump had previously violated Twitter’s policies many times prior (Twitter, “Permanent Suspension”). He frequently tweeted inaccurate information that went against the platform’s policy on civic and election integrity (Twitter, “Permanent Suspension”). However, these tweets remained on the platform regardless, with Twitter adding a warning that the information shared in the tweet could be misleading about an election or other civic processes. This represented Twitter’s attempt to foster an ideal environment for political speech while also letting the President’s incorrect information remain. Their reasoning for allowing this misinformation to stay on the platform comes from a 2018 company blog post on world leaders, stating “blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate” (Twitter, “World Leaders”). However, Twitter’s attempt to create a space where a healthy political conversation and rampant misinformation could coexist evidently fell flat.
Exploring the ineffectiveness of these cautionary warnings to prevent the spread of misinformation, Zeve Sanderson and his colleagues at NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics examined two types of intervention. The first is ‘soft intervention,’ which the article defined as a tweet being labeled as disputed and potentially misleading, but not stopped from spreading. The second is ‘hard intervention,’ which was defined as the tweet being labeled with a different warning message and blocked from allowing users to retweet, reply, or like the tweet (Sanderson et al.). The results of the study found that though hard interventions prevented a tweet from spreading on Twitter, tweets with a soft intervention received more retweets than those that received no intervention at all (Sanderson et al.). Furthermore, the study found that tweets with a hard intervention spread longer and farther on other social media platforms, such as Facebook and Reddit, compared to tweets that received a soft intervention or no intervention at all (Sanderson et al.). Therefore these specific efforts to limit the spread of misinformation on Twitter drastically failed. The interventions weren’t only ineffective but also counterproductive as they led to the flagged tweets receiving even more attention than those without any warning. Therefore minimal efforts such as the warnings were an inadequate response to the digital spread of misinformation. With Trump having over 88 million Twitter followers at the time of his suspension, the former president had a massive audience to whom he was constantly feeding misinformation (“Donald Trump’s Twitter Stats). Flagging his tweets as potentially misleading was not enough force to combat the malicious spread of misinformation. To significantly reduce Trump’s spread of misinformation, more drastic action would have to be taken by Twitter.
Though Twitter had repeatedly made exceptions for Trump’s rule-breaking, at a certain point it seemed his violations outweighed the value of having a space where the political leader could speak directly to his constituents. Trump was permanently banned from Twitter on January 8, 2021, which was a bold decision for the social media platform. Though other platforms including Instagram, Facebook, and even Snapchat also banned the former president over concerns of threats of violence and hate speech, Trump’s removal from Twitter was most significant because of how heavily he relied on the platform (Denham). According to Trump Twitter Archive, a website launched in 2016 to track the president’s Twitter usage, Trump tweeted over 16,000 times from his inauguration on January 20, 2017, to his suspension on January 8, 2021. Following Trump’s sudden deplatforming–a term used to describe when a person is banned from contributing to a mass communication medium–the misinformation shared on Twitter decreased rapidly. According to analytics firm Zignal Labs, misinformation regarding election fraud fell 73% across various social media platforms within a week of Trump’s Twitter restriction (Dwoskin and Timberg). This staggering statistic makes one thing clear: deplatforming works. This is because, as Graham Brookie, the director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, puts it “de-platforming, especially at the scale that occurred last week, rapidly curbs momentum and ability to reach new audiences” (Dwoskin and Timberg). Therefore the solution to making Twitter (and other social platforms) a venue where political speech can thrive seems simple. Social media sites can deplatform individuals that repeatedly share misinformation by removing them from their platforms. Additionally, as it has already been established, these social media platforms have the legal protection to do this without receiving any legal repercussions. However, even if it is legal, people question whether this would be healthy for the future of free speech.
Though many Americans have a quite firm belief of what free speech means, it is actually a concept with multiple different interpretations. A popular theory is the Marketplace of Ideas, which essentially holds that all speech is inherently neutral and good. This theory is against censoring any speech in an attempt to protect individuals from state or public suppression. (Visperas). While the model seems good in theory, in practice it can be problematic as it does not call for the removal or censorship of misinformation, instead believing that this inaccurate content will be ignored in favor of accurate, fact-checked information. The Marketplace of Ideas theory has become increasingly popular among conservatives, especially those angered by the deplatforming of controversial political figures such as Trump by social media companies. A survey published in 2021 by the nonpartisan fact tank Pew Research Center found that in 2018, 48% of Republican or Republican-leaning U.S. Adults said social media platforms like Twitter should make efforts to restrict misinformation online, even though it would limit freedom of information. When Pew Research Center asked the same question again in 2021, only 37% said platforms should attempt to restrict misinformation. This 11% decrease in only three years demonstrates the growing conservative fear of digital speech restrictions turning into censorship, specifically the censorship of Republican and conservative politicians. This fear demonstrates exactly why they favor the Marketplace of Ideas theory: Under this principle, no speech would be censored, and consequently, there would be no silencing of conservative voices. While there is of course merit in protecting freedom of speech, embracing this theory would transform Twitter and other social media platforms into cesspools of misinformation, not to mention the threats and abuse that would surely arise without any moderation of content. Fortunately, other theories address the ways in which the Marketplace of Ideas is ineffective in creating a healthy arena for free speech.
In competition with the Marketplace of Ideas is the Democratic Self-Government theory, often associated with the late philosopher Alexander Meiklejohn. According to American legal scholar Robert Post, under this theory “the First Amendment is understood to protect the communicative processes necessary to disseminate the information and ideas required for citizens to vote in a fully informed and intelligent way.” In other words, speech can be regulated in order to create an environment where citizens are only exposed to political information necessary to being properly educated. As a result, irresponsible or inaccurate speech can be suppressed as it only muddles the political conversation for those trying to stay informed. As Meiklejohn puts the entire theory quite succinctly, “what is essential is not that everyone shall speak, but that everything worth saying shall be said.” Therefore it provides solid reasoning for actively removing misinformation: this inaccurate content serves no use to the global political conversation. As a result, in order to keep the conversation a place for being properly informed, social media moderators can and should remove this speech, and deplatform the users that repeatedly share it. This ideology is necessary for Twitter because it prioritizes creating an effective space for global political conversation, rather than a space where everyone can speak.
Though embracing the Democratic Self-Government theory sounds convincing, a genuine concern is that it places too much power in the hands of social media platforms as they are for-profit corporations. Therefore it is a legitimate worry that these corporations would pick profit over protecting free speech, and would have the legal protection to do so. This prioritization of profit could occur through platforms purposely pushing content that is contentious and divisive, sacrificing an effective global conversation for a virtual brawl simply because controversial content gets more shares. This isn’t a hypothetical situation, either. According to technological data reporter Jeremy Merrill and technology analysis writer Will Oremus in The Washington Post, Facebook’s algorithm treats emoji reactions (love, haha, wow, sad, angry) to posts as five times more valuable than liking a post. Therefore posts receiving more emoji reactions spread more due to their increased engagement (Merrill and Oremus). Posts that received an angry reaction, which were likely to contain misinformation and unverified news, were then pushed to more users and spread quickly across the platform (Merrill and Oremus). Consequently, people have begun to fear these major tech companies regulating themselves, suggesting that the government should get involved in determining what content can be censored. Though it is understandable why some doubt the ability of these companies to self-regulate, they are more than capable of doing so. In fact, having industries self-regulate rather than rely on government regulation is a dynamic that has worked for many years. Take, for instance, the film industry, which was faced with a similar issue of determining the content that was appropriate to be viewed by certain audiences. To avoid the government from getting involved with regulating this content, in 1922 The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America was founded to develop a system preventing the inclusion of offensive material in film (“Who We Are”). The organization proved successful in its goal of regulating such content and still exists today as the Motion Picture Association (“Who We Are”). Similar groups were also formed to regulate the television and video game industries (Cusumano et al.). Therefore it is very much reasonable to allow social media companies to do the same. And, in fact, they already are making attempts to do so. The decisions of multiple social media companies to ban Trump following the Capitol storming proves that, when push comes to shove, these companies will make controversial decisions for the overall good of the platform, even if they lose users in the process.
With Elon Musk’s planned purchase of Twitter, it seems that the company will soon demonstrate what occurs when a social media platform exists without content moderation. However, it is without a doubt the platform will face backlash and harm its reputation in the process. And yet, this will be completely unnecessary. As seen by the reduction of misinformation shared following the ban of Donald Trump, deplatforming individuals and moderating content shared online can be very effective. Though this may result in there being more rules and less free, unfiltered speech, this is not a bad thing. These rules are necessary in order to have an environment where political speech can function. However, if Elon Musk wants to liberate Twitter and its users of these very necessary rules, he is free to do so. But it should come as no surprise that the newly unregulated speech and meaningful political conversations will not be able to coexist. While there will be more speech, there will be fewer fulfilling conversations. And what is the point of one without the other?
Works Cited
@ElonMusk. “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?.” Twitter, 26 Mar. 2022, 10:51 a.m., https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1507777261654605828
Cusumano, Michael A., Annabelle Gawer, and David B. Yoffie. “Social Media Companies should Self-Regulate. Now.” Harvard Business Review, vol. 15, 2021.
Denham, Hannah. “These are the Platforms that have Banned Trump and His Allies.” Washington Post, January 14, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/11/trump-banned-social-media/.
“Donald J. Trump’s Twitter Stats Summary Profile.”, January 8, 2021, https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/realdonaldtrump.
Dwoskin, Elizabeth, and Craig Timberg. “Misinformation Dropped Dramatically the Week After Twitter Banned Trump and some Allies .” Washington Post, January 16, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/16/misinformation-trump-twitter/.
Meiklejohn, Alexander. “Political Freedom: The Constitutional Powers of the People.”, 1960.
Merrill, J. B., and W. Oremus. “Five Points for Anger, One for a ‘like’: How Facebook’s Formula Fostered Rage and Misinformation.” The Washington Post, 2021.
Perrigo, Billy. “‘The Idea Exposes His Naiveté.’ Twitter Employees on Why Elon Musk is Wrong about Free Speech.” Time, April 14, 2022.
Post, Robert. “Reconciling Theory and Doctrine in First Amendment Jurisprudence.” Calif.L.Rev., vol. 88, 2000, pp. 2353.
Sanderson, Zeve, et al. “Twitter Flagged Donald Trump’s Tweets with Election Misinformation: They Continued to Spread both on and Off the Platform.” Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 2021.
Telecommunications Act of 1996. Translated by Congress. , 1996.
“Trump Twitter Archive.”, January 8, 2021, https://www.thetrumparchive.com/?dates=%5B%222017-01-19%22%2C%222021-01-05
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Twitter. “Permanent Suspension of @realDonaldTrump.”, January 8, 2021, https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.
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Visperas, Cristina. Communication 206: Communication and Culture. 4 Apr. 2022, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Class lecture.
“Who we Are.”, 2022, https://www.motionpictures.org/who-we-are/.
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