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Can billionaire’s buy back democracy?

If Elon Musk is our best example, the answer is no. Unfortunately, it might come as a surprise to some that the man who named his child X Æ A-12 is not going to preserve democracy by buying Twitter. Instead, if he follows through with the pullback of content moderation, he will be conveniently killing the freedom of speech he pledged to protect.

Researchers at MIT conducted a study tracking 126,000 news stories on Twitter from 2006 - 2017 to examine the way news travels, and they found that false news travels 10-20 times faster than facts. There are two approaches to fixing this issue. The first, to implement behavioral intervention that makes us humans less likely to interact with the fake and usually emotionally evocative messages, seems highly unrealistic, especially in the short term. The other short term solution is to have regulations on the platforms (self-imposed because the government runs about 20 years behind) that aim to limit the spread of misinformation. Twitter currently has multiple measures in place, such as fact checking viral tweets and banning users who spread falsehoods, incite violence, and spew hate speech.

However Elon Musk’s acqusition of the social media giant just last month could result in retracting these measures, as he has publicly stated his intention to allow all tweets to exist as long as they “speak freely within the bounds of the law,” which would not delete, block, or flag misinformation because it is perfectly legal to lie on the internet. Then he will not be protecting democracy through securing freedom of speech problem because stopping content moderation will allow misinformation to spread further and faster than the alarming rates that we have witnessed and studies have proven.

One reason why Musk’s plan will harm democracy is because it will make the truth harder to find. If people’s timelines are filled, post after post, with intentionally divisive and fear-mongering political fabrications, they are either going to get lost down a rabbithole of illogical conspiracy theories or stop trusting and eventually looking at posts on these platforms, which diminishes the voices of those who use the platform responsibly. Because democracy relies on the voting population to be informed, to think rationally, and to be engaged within their community, Musk needs to allow Twitter to become a place where truth-seekers are rewarded and genuine community engagement is possible, which requires more content and bot moderation as well as changes to the fundamental algorithms that push tweets to peoples’ timelines

Another reason why Musk’s current plan will not work is because of its impact on marginalized communities. One key component of current content moderation is removing hate speech. If Musk removes those policies, it will have a disproportionate impact on racial and ethnic minority communities because they are the victims of around three quarters of online hate. Musk might claim that he is purging censorship policies, but in reality he will be allowing groups will societal power to have unchecked abilities to harm and indimidate those whom they wish to discriminate agains. Within 12 hours of Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform, tweets containing the N-word rose by 500% because he has not yet been clear about the distinguishment between free speech and hate speech, and thus emboldened those who partake in hate speech to feel accepted on the platform.

If marginalized communities within democracies are not protected, then they will loose access to the democratic process. If someone does not feel safe online, then they might not feel safe running for office or even going to the polls to vote. This should hopefully not come as a surprise, but “the inclusion of marginalized communities in the democratic process is imperative” and if Musk’s actions turn Twitter into a place where marginalized groups are not protected, then the platform will be actively contributing to the downfall of American democracy, which is exactly what he claims to be ‘preventing’ through his actions.

The problem we are facing is that billionaires do not do what is best for society, they do what is best for them, otherwise there is no way they would have become so extraordinarily wealthy. Elon Musk might have noble claims about using Twitter to save democracy, but he is not a social scientist, he is an engineer and a businessman. What American democracy needs from him right now is to make sure the social media platform which is a huge conduit of political news does not become a place where truth gets overpowered by falsehoods and hate speech due to a lack of moderation because that will not save free speech.