Elon Musk Buys Twitter – why it should be governed by the publics that use them

Elon Musk has made a deal to buy Twitter with a promise to reduce censorship on the platform. Dr Garfield Benjamin, online privacy expert and Lecturer in Social Sciences at Solent University, Southampton says: “He’s using the whole ‘public space’ or ‘town square’ line to promote free speech, but it’s never been truly public and him owning it privately just completely undermines that idea.

“Also, free speech always has limits, or at least contexts and norms that play a part (racist speech, for example, is always illegal, and any community will have lines that if you cross you get kicked out), and as soon as an algorithm is deciding what we see on our feed things get complicated with free speech – even if you can say what you like it, doesn’t mean anyone else is going to see it (nor that they should!). A right to free speech is not a right to a public platform to force people to hear what you have to say.

“The main issue is that if platforms like Twitter are essential to public discourse and democracy (which they have become) then they should be publicly owned and governed by the publics that use them.”