Musk’s one-on-one with Kanye signals naivety in moderating hate speech on Twitter

Self-proclaimed freedom of speech absolutist Elon Musk couldn’t resist warmly welcoming Kanye West back to Twitter after the rapper suspended his Instagram account over the weekend for posting a caption that reflected dangerous Nazi propaganda by he suggested that Jewish people have too much power today. On Saturday, replied Musk to a tweet from West criticizing Mark Zuckerberg for the rapper’s Instagram ban, and Musk telling Kanye, “Welcome back to Twitter my friend!”

A short time later, West was also banned from Twitter, this time for the escalation of his anti-Semitic content. In another tweet, West coolly conjured up memories of the Holocaust by suggesting he would commit “death poisoning 3 against Jews.” Commentators have since speculated whether West intended to tweet “Death Con 3” or “Defcon 3,” a military term that indicates a high level of defense readiness the US has only achieved twice in history. However, both meanings, reported Vanity Fair, set off alarm bells. “Although it wasn’t clear if he wanted to write ‘Defcon’ or actually ‘Death Con’, neither would be great given the persecution Jews have faced in the past, including the one time when more than 6 million of them lived they have been wiped off the face of the earth,” reads the Vanity Fair analysis.

Musk, like many Republicans, opposes broad censorship of hate speech on social media, which he says conflicts with First Amendment protections. As controversy arose, Musk stuck by West, now named Ye, who has spoken publicly about his bipolar disorder and experiences tweeting through manic episodes. Musk tweeted Monday, “I spoke to Ye today and expressed my concern about his recent tweet which I think he took to heart.”

The Washington Post analyzed the tweet exchange and suggested that if Elon Musk did indeed take over Twitter, he probably wouldn’t have suspended Yes’s account. “Between a growing field of state laws aimed at restricting content moderation and Elon Musk’s determination to relax Twitter’s policies, posts like Yes could soon become more common online,” The Post suggested, noting, that neither Twitter nor Instagram had clarified which specific policies West’s posts violated.

While Musk appeared to support West in this content moderation battle, some Twitter users mocked Musk in his thread, joking that should he ever take the reins and run Twitter, the billionaire’s content moderation policy will be to meet in person with each and every person posting hate speech.

When asked if West would eventually be notified as to why his posts violated the Twitter Rules, a Twitter spokesperson told Ars that Twitter had nothing to share beyond what he originally said: “The account was terminated for violating the guidelines banned from Twitter.”

Meta did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment on his decision to suspend Yes’s Instagram account and remove posts.

What Twitter users want

Musk’s plan to buy Twitter was largely fueled by his views on free speech, with the billionaire last spring describing the platform as “the digital town square where matters important to the future of humanity are debated.” More recently this month, Musk dropped his lawsuit against Twitter, which blocked the buyout, and the deal should be up and running again, but Twitter has since claimed that Musk can’t be trusted to go through with the deal.

For Twitter users affected by hate speech, this deal, which remains in limbo, leaves the question of how safe users will be on the platform going forward. Musk has promised to relax standards for content moderation, but it’s not yet clear what that will mean. For now, Twitter Policies Restrict content like Yes’s tweet if it threatens violence against a group of people, or promotes terrorism (the FBI recently reported that anti-Semitic terrorism is on the rise domestically), or promotes violence against people based on race, ethnicity, or religion.

Although private companies like social media companies have the legal right to set policies restricting speech on their platforms, Musk earlier this year suggested companies should align policies with laws like the First Amendment because he says it does that is what users want.

“If people want less freedom of speech, they will ask the government to pass legislation,” Musk tweeted in April this year. “Therefore, it goes against the will of the people to go beyond the law.”

However, Musk may not have a full idea of ​​what Twitter users want. In May, the nonpartisan watchdog group Anti-Defamation League released the results of a poll of more than 2,000 Americans who shared their experiences of hate and harassment online. Among the poll questions, ADL asked what solutions Americans expect from social media companies to address the problem. “Both victims of harassment and those who have not reported being harassed want effective platform action and more legal accountability,” ADL reported. More than 80 percent of respondents agreed that “social media platforms should do more to counter hate online.”