IThe way social media is generating headlines these days is not without precedent: a fragile narcissist posting relentlessly on a social network he has made his own. We know all too well how this has ended in the past; Donald Trump’s furious messages after his electoral defeat led to the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The aftermath of that episode saw the then-president suspended from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and even, to the dismay of those hoping to create a Mar-a-Lago moodboard, from Pinterest.
This time it’s likely to be different, especially since the person stirring up the social media frenzy, Elon Musk, is the owner of the platform he’s using.
On Monday, the two men will meet. Musk will hold a live conversation with the former president. Promising “Entertainment Guaranteed”.
I worked at Twitter for most of Trump’s presidency, as the most senior executive outside the US. During my eight years at the platform, it became clear that there is something lost in the British interpretation of free speech and the arguments repeated by those who adopt an American libertarian interpretation of the concept.
Being the British office of an American operation allowed us to experience the almost religious and repetitive defence of free speech on a daily basis. Twitter’s founding general counsel, Alex Macgillivray, once described the company as the “free speech wing of the free speech party”. In the US, there is often a myopic sense that its freedoms do not exist in the rest of the world, but in the UK’s 1998 Human Rights Act, Article 10 It enshrines freedom of expression. Fundamentally, it recognises that freedom of expression carries with it a duty of responsibility. UK law requires that such freedom of expression must not be used to incite crime or spread hatred.
In the case of US-based tech companies, the concept of “free speech” is perceived somewhat differently. When I worked at Twitter, under a much more enlightened regime, the London team quickly realised that the notion of “free speech” championed in San Francisco was not always focused on creating the kind of utopian world one might casually imagine. We often saw that the idea that anyone could say whatever they wanted had a dark side; time and again, this led to a minority group (a subset of straight white men) being able to aggressively attack large sections of the rest of society, including women, the LBGTQ+ community and ethnic minorities.
Worst of all, if left unchecked, this group ruined the experience of the platform for everyone else. It’s hard to convince people these days that they didn’t use the product during happier times, such as the 2012 London Olympics or the first X Factor, but Twitter used to be a fun, light-hearted place. Sadly, a laissez-faire approach to abuse allowed much of the light-hearted humour to be driven away. As much as X/Twitter loves to present itself as the “global town square”, such communal spaces only thrive when everyone knows that anti-social behaviour will not be tolerated.
Working in the UK office was a bit like working in a parliamentary system without a written constitution. There was a vague sense that, rather than rules and regulations holding the organisation to account, the platform would be constrained by external expectations.
For example, during the violence outbreaks of 2013, when the industry’s top female users were threatened with rape and violence, the only thing that helped the UK office to draw the attention of our San Francisco headquarters was the mention that advertisers were considering boycotting the platform. Democracies should not sit back and take advantage of the soft power of boycotts, especially since, in the case of X, most advertisers have long since left.
As someone who worked not just at Twitter but also at YouTube when the company faced its dire abuse issues, I remain convinced that a social media platform can create norms of behaviour that allow for polite discussion. Instagram is undoubtedly far more civil, and TikTok creators regularly tell their audience that they have just served a punishment because the content they posted crossed the line. But to operate a nicer place requires resources – systems need to be built, and that infrastructure needs to be staffed. Whether it’s politicians who received personal threats, footballers who had racism spewed at them, or users who said they had been called “fucking Jews”, the resources were never given to demonstrate the promise of anything better. The government can hold platforms to account for this, for example by asking them to confirm the number of UK-based staff in areas such as user safety and law enforcement.
Despite attempts to present “free speech” as a philosophical conviction, the reason for its popularity among tech companies is pure and simple: it’s cheap. “So it was capitalism after all,” says journalist Kara Swisher, in the opening line of her memoir about covering Silicon Valley. The approach taken by tech companies is less about deeply held principles and more about money, as evidenced by the growing support for Trump in San Francisco’s venture capital community. We’ve been hesitant to label tech billionaires oligarchs because people like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jack Dorsey wielded their political power delicately. Holding oligarchs to account for what their platforms enable is straightforward and entirely possible.
As for Musk’s tweets, there is often a clue to his personal posts. The Instagram account @elonmusksjet, which uses public flight logs to track the movements of Musk’s private jets, offers an easy opportunity to match the billionaire’s social media posts to the time zone from which they were posted. It was just after 4 a.m. in Texas when Musk again shared a fake post suggesting Keir Starmer was planning to set up a private jet network. “Detention camps” in the Falkland IslandsIf we take a look at Musk’s X feed, we see that he often stays up late into the night posting and replying. He has been opened about his use of ketamineapparently a medical prescription. While 4am tweets can be deleted (like the one about detention camps), the real consequences linger long after the hype has died down.
What can the UK do now? Fortunately, the immediate threat of civil unrest appears to have receded. Musk himself has adopted the aura of a teenager on a bus without headphones, making plenty of noise but failing to exactly convince people. Last week, Emily Bell, director of the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism, observed that X had become exasperating to use because the billionaire has “somehow sorted out his stupid observations”. To insert at the top of each feed,” something that one of the X engineers confirmed last year when Musk asked them to talk about building the platform’s algorithm. Yes, Musk’s own tweets are prioritized on the app. In addition to freedom of expression, he also demands freedom of reach.
The question we are faced with is whether we are prepared to allow a billionaire oligarch to camp off the coast of the UK and fire on our society.
The idea that boycott, whether by high-profile users or advertisers, is our only sanction is nonsensical. Other countries have banned the app, but we probably don’t want to find ourselves in a WhatsApp group with Russia, Turkey and Venezuela, the other countries that are on that side of the debate.
In the short term, Musk and his fellow executives must be reminded of their criminal liability for their actions under applicable laws. Online Safety Act of 2023 Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his team should reflect on whether Ofcom – the media regulator that seems to be continually questioned over the output and behaviour of outlets such as GB News – is in a position to deal with the swift actions of people like Musk.
What else should change? Social media should have rules and standards that are publicly accountable. Users should have the right to have their complaints reviewed and acted upon by a real person within a week, and to refer them to an ombudsman if they don’t like the resolution. Ofcom should have the right to demand that certain voices, like Tommy Robinson’s, be banned from platforms. Anyone who doubts the feasibility of this should take a look at social media in Germany, where platforms are much more accountable. In Germany, illegal Nazi content is routinely removed within minutes of being reported. Accountability extends to local leaders and is incredibly mobilising.
In my experience, that threat of personal sanction is far more effective for executives than the risk of corporate fines. If Musk were to continue to cause unrest, a warrant for his arrest might set off fireworks, but as an international jet-setter it would have the effect of focusing his mind. It’s also worth remembering that the rules for what’s allowed at X are made by one of Musk’s lesser-known advisers, a man from Yorkshire. named Nick Pickleswho leads X’s global affairs team.
Musk’s actions should be a wake-up call for the Starmer government to quietly legislate to take back control of what we collectively agree is permissible on social media. Musk can force his angry tweets to appear at the top of your timeline, but the will of a democratically elected government should mean more than the fury of a tech oligarch – even him.
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Bruce Daisley He was Vice President for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Twitter, where he worked from 2012 to 2020.
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