Elon Musk makes a difference all over the world. It is widely known that Twitter is one of the leading platforms in the USA and in the majority of the democratic world. Having this social media in your pocket is a very powerful tool that you can use in one way or the other. However, it is not that simple. It also represents a great headache when dealing with governments regarding censorship and freedom of speech.
Now that the head of the Twitter influence monster has been changed, a change in the direction and tilt in the political discourse is expected to happen. Where will this shift lead the USA is unknown for now. Will it be more of a neutral shift? Will it be more conservative? Time will tell.
China And India Do Not Accept Twitter Under Elon’s Leadership
However, the primal goal of the new lead, Elon Musk is not the USA. Here he knows that the influence is inevitable and he doesn’t have to worry about it very much. Elon’s main concern is the Asian continent.
Asia is a great deal. Firstly, holding half of the world’s population, this is Twitter’s greatest growth opportunity, and greatest current user audience. However, things are not so simple there.
Elon was bragging about annulling censorship to an extent where nothing will be censored anymore, of course except really sensitive spheres like terrorism, violence, etc. The censure is the single biggest enemy of the totalitarian governments of the East. That is why they will absolutely not accept this new policy of his.
The number of daily active Twitter users is around 180 million. A considerably small portion of these users is in the USA. To be more precise around 40 million users. The rest 140 million are in the remaining of the world.
Due to its public nature, the social media company must accept the local laws of each country separately.
Now the billionaire is at a crossroad. The first option is that he follows the policy that he advocated so loudly before buying the platform. This will result in not taking advantage of the potential that the East has. The second option is that he will approach the free speech aims in these countries differently than in the democratic world and will create a sort of separate way of working of the platform in the East.
Since we do not have any information on this coming from the officials of the company, we can only guess what will happen.
China. Do they hold Elon by the balls? Will he fall under China’s pressure?
Elon is a major businessman and as such has international deals and businesses all over the world including in China. China is a major player in each global business. As such a strong player, the Republic is in a position to ask for various ‘services’ from the billionaire. Services that he will not be able to refuse. If he is not able to fulfill them they can pressure his other businesses and with that have a firm grasp over his wish for free speech.
Take Tesla for example. Tesla is highly dependent on China. China is one of the top consumers of the electric vehicles that the billionaire is selling. More importantly, they are the resource of supply to Tesla for batteries and other spare parts. Finally, China went the distance and permitted some exclusive tax breaks to Tesla for the setup of the Giga Factory in Shanghai. China needs to somehow compensate for this.
“Musk will be put through one of the most aggressive tests. Musk’s commitment to expanding free speech on Twitter will lie in whether he resists pressure from Beijing. He will be pressured to wipe out criticisms and challenges for China on the platform. Whatever changes he makes on the platform in the name of free speech might undergo a heavy Chinese control. And Twitter is something that Musk has rightly labeled a global public square. We do not want such propaganda at the square.” – Suzanne Nossel says. She is the CEO of the non-profit group PEN America.
And Musk is not saying anything to defend his view. The only thing that he publicized is a tweet saying:
“By free speech, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.” What happens with the spambots? What happens with fake accounts?
In 2020 solely, more than 150k Twitter accounts were deleted from the platform. These were Chinese accounts spreading geopolitical narratives in favor of the Communist Party of China.
”I will defeat the spambots or I will die trying!” Elon was very loud about spam, or fake accounts. He swore to put an end to it. Will he continue to do so? If he is a man of his word he better do.
China is not playing. The country showed that it is serious in its intentions. China will punish everyone who will not comply with its rules and requests.
Wei Jianguo is a member of China’s Ministry of Commerce. He says – “Cutting off semiconductors and banning TikTok is only the beginning for the United States. Regarding this, we have to prepare mentally for the long term. I hope that the US can gain clarity on the situation and look for ways to cooperate with China instead.”
They have the guts to threaten a world-leading country directly. What happens with businessmen? I leave it to you to imagine.
Will the Chinese receive permission to use Twitter? With the free speech policy that Elon is to implement certainly not.
Will China pressurize Elon through Tesla, SpaceX, and the Boring Company? – Most certainly yes. We can only wait and see whether he will fall under this pressure.
The Indian Influence On The World
India is the second-largest market for Twitter. As well as for any other business to be more precise. India currently stays at around 500 million internet users. However, another 500 million users are on the rise and to be active within the short period that follows. This makes it a major market for all social media companies. At the moment there are around 20 million Twitter platform users only. The remaining, almost 1 billion users, are to be somehow attracted to join.
However, in this country, Elon is facing a similar situation as in the USA. Here too, politicians are using Twitter as a main social media platform. They express themselves and send national messages to the commoners through it. In order for the platform to be publicized and popularized, some restrictions need to be introduced. This is in direct conflict with Elon’s freedom of speech policy.
At the moment, India is far more aggressive with the censure than the rest of the democratic world. As an example, we have the farmer protests that occurred in 2021. The farmers requested some internal country laws that were affecting them to undergo some amendments. However, the government was not willing to meet the terms.
The farmers were using Twitter as a tool through which they were expressing their dissatisfaction. The Indian administration requested that the critical posts from the farmer’s organization be taken down – to which Twitter responded negatively. The conflict escalated quickly as a wildfire. The Indian authorities threatened with jail to some of the company’s main characters. As a result, Twitter ends up deleting a little less than 1000 accounts.
Firstly, this is an example of how the government’s views can differ from the main policy of any social media platform. Secondly, this situation shows how easy it is to organize, or even manipulate, a greater number of people just by spreading your messages through social media.
Finally, this is why Elon cannot implement a single censorship policy globally.
The Problem with Southeast Asia in general
When I say Southeast Asia, I mean the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, etc. This is one of the fastest-growing territories in the world for the last 20 years. As such, the financial benefits that will come with implementing these territories into the platform are beyond great. However, allowing complete free speech for these countries will be facing some issues.
Firstly, in this area, there is a major issue with fake accounts and spambots. Out of the known 11% of fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram, the majority concentrates in Southeast Asia. How many times has it happened that you’ve received a follow request, or a friend request from someone suspicious? The majority of spam requests received throughout the world originate from this area.
The usage for these profiles is for spamming, sharing of false information, for various internet scams, etc.
Having this in mind, I don’t even know how Elon will benefit from including this area on the platform. Aside from the financial benefits, the platform will be ‘raped’ by spam attacks. Raped to the extent that no single post would be able to pass without being ‘attacked’ by those spambots, or fake accounts.
Currently, free speech is another big problem. The local laws are as fierce as they can get. Just imagine, Singapore has a ‘foreign interference’ law that puts all foreign social media platforms subjective to providing user information to the government. This is as they say in order to prevent foreign interference in the politics of the region. Vietnam followed Singapore’s lead and implemented the law as well.
Elon Musk might face real difficulties with this advocacy of free speech there. He definitely has an interest in globalism in general, taking into consideration his oversea businesses. However, he cannot push these policies forcefully throughout the world.
He will undergo some suppression in these areas. Nevertheless, he might reconsider this free speech policy, he might want to limit it only to the USA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7txOdJEDWw
