We should each be in charge of deciding who gets—or doesn’t get—to fairly and responsibly moderate the material we see on Twitter.
Twitter has major problems—though not the ones hysterical liberals have been braying about. There are problems even those not on the Left can easily see: It isn’t profitable. It has a poor track record of innovation. User growth has stagnated. And many of those users who remain don’t trust the platform’s content moderation practices, which have a documented liberal bias. But if anyone can fix Twitter, it might well be the innovator who has managed to grab a significant market share inside of two industries that are notoriously difficult for newcomers to break into: space and automobiles. Elon Musk says he wants to bring « free speech » to Twitter because he is « against censorship that goes far beyond the law. » It’s an admirable goal, but one that will prove hard to implement in practice. Twitter is a global company with assets, staff, and offices in 23 countries. It will need to comply with national laws, including transnational disparities in law frequently make content that is legal in one territory illegal in another. After all, there is no universally accepted definition of free speech. And Twitter, like all social media platforms, has often struggled on this front, especially given the rapid response times that its teams face in order to review problematic material so that it does not go viral. While it’s clearly made mistakes, it’s up against a real challenge, namely, the fact that social media platforms face opposing demands: They must respect national laws, uphold human rights like the right to privacy or security, but also minimize restrictions to freedom of expression.
