All censorship requests to Twitter public

In the increasingly escalating cold war between Twitter boss Elon Musk and the European Union, the controversial multi-billionaire makes the next move.

Relationship between governments and freedom of expression difficult

Governments often have quite a bit of trouble with freedom of expression and freedom of information. In autocratic regimes like those of Russia and China, where years of imprisonment follow if you publish things that conflict with the government’s position, that is of course abundantly clear.

But in a much milder form, governments that like to present themselves as the guardian of democracy, such as the Dutch government, can also have a considerable need for control and censorship. For example, by illegally endlessly delaying WOO requests for politically sensitive information.

Twitter target of government criticism

The focal point of this controversy is currently Twitter. After the takeover by Elon Musk, this has become a sanctuary for freedom of expression (according to many people, including myself), or a sewerage pit of fake news, insults and threats (according to more law-abiding people, and especially politicians and governments).

At this time, Twitter’s policy is to abide only by a country’s local free speech laws. These are usually less stringent than the ‘voluntary’ moderation that Twitter and other companies have been cooperating with in recent years.

European politicians are not very happy about this, and both European Commissioner Thierry Breton and the French minister have already threatened to fine Twitter and, if necessary, ban it from the European Union if the company does not moderate more actively than it is now. Musk has little interest in more moderation, for two reasons.

In addition to the principled reason that he opts for far-reaching freedom of expression, this is a financially practical one. Moderation is expensive, in his eyes a waste of money and yields nothing. The more than eighty percent of Twitter employees who received their congé from Musk, who took in more than a billion a year in wages, were mainly engaged in moderation and made Twitter a somewhat dull, dusty platform.

All censorship requests public

In a step that is unique in the tech world to date, Musk has therefore decided to put all requests for moderation and censorship online, reports the Austrian newspaper Exxpress.

A smart move from the point of view of freedom of expression enthusiasts, for the following reasons. It is very interesting to find out exactly what information governments want to keep under wraps. This often involves politically sensitive information. It also makes this information so much easier to find.

The second reason is that the information will still remain online, but will only be geoblocked. The Twitter account of opposition politicians is no longer accessible from Turkish IP addresses, but it can still be reached from outside Turkey. This will encourage Turks and others who want to get out of censorship to get a VPN. This further reduces the government’s grip on the information flow.

The future of moderation

No freedom is absolute, including freedom of expression. For example, the opinion that minister X or public figure Y should be pricked with pitchforks because of policy or views is sedition and therefore punishable. (Almost) everyone also agrees that it is not a good idea to put a do-it-yourself manual for an atomic bomb online.

But where do you set the limit? Musk leaves this to the national governments, otherwise the (in the field of freedom of speech, quite broad) US law. After all, X Corp, of which Twitter is a part, is an American company. Someone else will set these boundaries differently. For example, the moderation on Facebook is much stricter. Because the internet is international, and geoblocks are quite easy to get around with VPNs, this means that the country with the most liberal rules de facto determines what is allowed or not.