A opinion editorial The New York Times suggests free speech is mostly fine…except when it’s not.
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Shira Ovide wrote last week that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has the chance to promote free speech online and only ban content in “extreme cases.” Ovide writes that users might trust the platform more if they could “air their grievances.”
“Online freedom and trust would be enhanced if people could understand the decisions Twitter, Facebook and YouTube make and had a chance to air their grievances,” Ovide wrote. “That requires more investment and openness from Twitter and its peers to explain their sometimes difficult judgment calls regarding online expression, and easier ways for users to appeal those decisions.”
Those “decisions” presumably refer to the censorship of conservative voices online.
To get there, Ovide seems to argue that Musk should promote political expression online, except in “extreme cases.” The article does not list what topics are “extreme,” but based on Ovide’s earlier comments they might include COVID-19 and the 2020 election:
“Several experts in online speech have told me that Musk could build trust in Twitter as a place that encourages a vigorous exchange of ideas by ensuring that the site allows posts from U.S. elected officials and candidates and only restricts discussions of political topics in extreme cases.
The challenge is deciding when Twitter and other social media sites should be able to delete or ban political posts. We saw this debated when many people believed that Donald Trump and other officials had too much leeway to post false claims about election fraud on Twitter before and after the 2020 presidential election.”
Ovide also commended Twitter’s “flawed but worthy” misinformation flagging system.
“There are limits to a hands-off approach to online political speech,” Ovide wrote. “Twitter has experimented with adding flawed but worthy contextual information to potentially misleading political posts. Most experts believe that Twitter and Facebook were right in removing Mr. Trump from the sites following last year’s Capitol riot. Some of them think that his suspensions should be lifted.)”
NewsBusters reports that Musk initially stated his purchase of Twitter because he believed in free speech.
He stated that free speech was the foundation of any functioning democracy and Twitter is where vital issues for the future of mankind are discussed.
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