One of the key tests for Elon Musk when it comes to managing Twitter will be how he’ll run the platform to deal with state-affiliated media in nations where Musk himself has a vested interest. For example, China, which has been running influence operations via Tweets in the past, is a critical partner for Tesla, which is Musk’s bread and butter business.

China manufactures most of the components used in Tesla’s vehicles, while Musk is also looking to expand Tesla sales into India, and in both cases, the company will need to work with the government in each region to secure critical partnerships. Moderation-wise, it could prove problematic, and there have been some concerning signs of how ‘Twitter 2.0’ may or may not be looking to manage such.

Anti-Gov? 

To start, as reported by Semafor, Twitter has halted its efforts to limit the reach of Chinese and Russian state-controlled media outlets by removing labels on state-affiliated media content, designed to improve transparency. On that note, Twitter did expand its labeling of state-affiliated media last May, in response to the onset of the Ukrainian conflict. Now, Twitter has seemingly removed them completely.

As Semafor reports:

“In tests conducted by Semafor, the ‘Stay informed’ labels no longer appeared, even though Twitter’s state-affiliated media policy still continues to list the measure as one way it’s providing ‘additional context for accounts heavily engaged in geopolitics and diplomacy’. And when Semafor searched for Russian and Chinese state-affiliated outlets like Izvestia, Xinhua, and the People’s Daily, their official accounts showed up as some of the top results.”

Of course, this could be attributed to the numerous staff cuts, which have reduced the platform’s capacity to implement such programs, but it does seem like a concerning development – combining this policy shift with Musk’s other business interests, there could potentially be alignment in this approach. At the same time, Twitter has labeled NPR as state-affiliated media in the US, which, as NPR explains, is not. That continues an emerging trend of Twitter making changes that are similar in nature to negative news reports, which could potentially be a means to dilute negative coverage.

Earlier this week, Twitter changed its main app logo to the Dogecoin, which comes as Musk is being sued for $258 million for promoting Dogecoin to artificially inflate the cryptocurrency’s price. The change meant that if you went searching for stories about ‘Elon Musk’ and ‘Dogecoin’, the bulk coverage was about Twitter changing its logo, and not much about Musk’s racketeering case.

This could perhaps be a means of controlling the narrative or manipulating media trends – given how so many journalists rely on Twitter to stay in the know, it could have an outsized influence in this respect. However, that’s not the only conflict Twitter 2.0’s dealing with. The Indian Government is also looking to implement new laws that would restrict social platforms from publishing negative content about the government-related business.

These new laws would see Social Media platforms lose their safe harbor protections in India if they fail to act on removing such criticisms, expanding the government’s push to moderate and control speech on social platforms.

The Wrap

Inadvertently, all these would be a new challenge to Musk’s free speech push – though, thus far, that push has seemed fairly contained in only the US, with Musk repeatedly noting that the company will adhere to the laws of the land in each region. As noted, especially since it has already done so in the past, Twitter will likely continue to resist these kinds of regulatory changes, which could end up being a key consideration in such shifts. It remains an element to monitor, especially since Musk is now purposely throwing in his entanglements to influence Twitter’s policy, which just gives more authoritarian governments more reason to try and control speech in the app.

Sources

http://bit.ly/41eNQX1