Billionaire Elon Musk’s attempt to take Twitter private and make it more free-speech oriented could nudge other social media giants to censor less content in order to remain relevant, conservative tech scholars argue.
The news of Musk’s offer to buy Twitter for $41 billion Thursday has raised the prospect that if he succeeds in making the platform more popular and free speech inclined, then tech giants such as Facebook and Google could be pressured into changing their content moderation policies and algorithms as well.
Musk expressly tied his initial purchase of 9.2% of Twitter earlier this month to his ambition of making the platform more free speech oriented, which he said is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.
It is not clear if Musk will actually succeed in buying Twitter, but conservative tech scholars’ initial predictions are optimistic about his ability to try and change the online landscape.
“Facebook, Google, and others will have to reevaluate if their current censorship policies will continue,” said Mike Davis, president of the Internet Accountability Project, a conservative advocacy group.
“There will be pressure to change their content moderation policies that censor conservatives and others they disagree with,” he added.
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Conservatives often cite prominent examples of anti-Republican or anti-conservative bias on Big Tech platforms, including Trump’s widespread social media bans, the suppression on Twitter of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden before the 2020 election, and the many famous conservatives who have been suspended or kicked off Twitter for flouting the platform’s content moderation policies.
Davis added that relying on Musk to buy and change Twitter and other social media platforms was a “Band-Aid solution over the gaping wound of Big Tech” and that a more sustainable solution to reining in the tech giants is having greater choice within the social media industry by updating the laws around antitrust and content moderation.
Conservatives are hopeful that Musk could unintentionally compel large social media platforms to change their content moderation policies to become more free speech oriented.
“If Musk is successful and implements a First Amendment standard, it will have [a] downstream effect on how Facebook or YouTube police speech,” said Jon Schweppe, the director of policy and government affairs at the American Principles Project, another conservative advocacy group.
“The downstream effects at Facebook could mean less censorship and more political content if Twitter becomes a bigger player in the social media space because Facebook will want to keep up,” he contended.
Schweppe said he was excited about Musk’s attempted takeover of Twitter because conservatives have never had a billionaire fight for their ideas and values like liberals have.
Other right-leaning tech scholars say Facebook and Google will be pushed to keep up with Twitter if Musk succeeds.
“Facebook, Google, and other platforms will have to find ways to remain relevant and reexamine their content moderation standards if Musk is successful at Twitter,” said Shane Tews, a senior fellow who focuses on technology issues at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-of-center think tank.
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“Anytime your user base gets used to and likes new features, then you have to compete and find a way to meet that need,” she said, “which is what the big platforms will have to do.”
