No to democrazy musk’s ‘absolutist’ free speech idea is undesirable
Maverick tycoon and the world’s richest person Elon Musk has made a hostile bid for Twitter, claiming his aim is to “to help freedom in the world”. True, part of today’s democratic zeitgeist is characterised by social media platforms being in a fraught relationship with free speech. Their struggle with moderating speech is a live issue across geographies. Despite only around 2% Indians being on Twitter it manages to have wide leverage even in our society and politics. But Musk’s “absolutist” stand on free speech can’t answer questions raised by fake and/or toxic news and views expressed on social media platforms, some of which can translate into violence against persons or groups, and even compromise election integrity and other fundamental institutions of democracy.Certainly, there could be much greater transparency to various platforms’ moderation policies. Open-source algorithms would be advisable. These would be transformative in curbing the promotion of abusive content. But the bottomline is that the stakes are now too high for social media platforms to simply shrug off accountability for the content they host. From Mariupol to Madhya Pradesh, it is real lives that get wounded by bot armies. Musk is right that “free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.” Democracy thrives where dissent does. But democracy can’t mean fake news, dangerous misinformation and hate speech should have a free rein.
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