Why it issues: For all his outlandish remarks, it might be simple to dismiss Musk’s takeover of Twitter as a method to safe a megaphone for expressing his views to a large viewers. However, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO might have good intentions in any case, even when solely to appease regulators who’re wanting into the Twitter acquisition.
Elon Musk is thought for his controversial takes posted on Twitter, however the Tesla billionaire not too long ago made a press release that clarifies his intentions with the social media platform he is making an attempt to amass for a whopping $44 billion.
This week, Musk appeared in a video alongside European Commissioner Thierry Breton the place he expressed his help for issues such because the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). With the DSA, European regulators will quickly power tech giants to reasonable the content material posted on their platforms extra aggressively to fight disinformation and forestall private hurt to particular person customers.
In the video, Musk mentioned he believes the DSA is “precisely aligned” with the long run targets of Twitter as a social platform. This suggests his earlier outlandish remarks about being a “free speech absolutist” or stress-free Twitter’s already lax moderation insurance policies might have little to do with the precise plans he has for making it a greater area for public dialog.
Today @elonmusk and I needed to share a fast message with you on platform regulation 🇪🇺#DSA pic.twitter.com/nvP5FEXECY
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) May 9, 2022
The newest assertion confirms that Musk’s concept of free speech on Twitter merely matches the laws of the international locations by which it operates, no matter how permissive that laws is. He not too long ago famous that if folks in a given nation want to have much less free speech, they’ll ask their authorities to cross legal guidelines to that impact.
What is turning into extra clear as time goes on is that a few of Musk’s instructed enhancements for Twitter do bear some similarities with the DSA. For occasion, the preliminary draft of the DSA suggests tech giants working within the EU must train extra transparency round the best way their algorithms serve content material to customers. This aligns with Musk’s plan to open-source Twitter’s algorithm, however we’ll have to attend and see whether or not or not that may materialize within the close to future.
Another space of curiosity for each the DSA and the Musk-powered Twitter is to “authenticate all people” on the platform. This poses the danger of leaving some customers who want to keep nameless for apparent causes uncovered to threats of violence and punishment by demise in a number of international locations. However, it could additionally scale back the variety of bots and faux accounts, one thing that is been the Achilles heel of social media for some time now.
Suffice to say that whereas Musk appears prepared to please governments world wide, it isn’t but clear how he plans to attain that with a world social community. Content posted by customers from one nation is normally obtainable to folks world wide. Conversely, if one piece of content material is topic to particular moderation insurance policies in a single nation, which will have an effect on what folks in different international locations see, probably distorting the picture they see.
Today, Twitter announced the primary change to the best way it operates with one thing it calls the “Copypasta and duplicate content material coverage.” This will supposedly promote wholesome dialog and fight spam and duplicate content material from flooding the platform. Automated accounts posting spam shall be topic for removing, whereas duplicative content material shall be downranked in replies and even faraway from e-mail suggestions.
