When the richest man in the world Elon Musk bought the messaging service Twitter just under two years ago, he promised to keep the service politically neutral.
As a first step, Musk returned dozens of banned users to Twitter. In the name of freedom of speech, Twitter’s doors were opened to people who had previously spread hate speech and conspiracy theories on the service or incited people to violence.
Musk welcomed, among other things, a social media personality known for his misogynistic speeches Andrew Tate, a Republican representative spreading conspiracy theories By Marjorie Taylor Greenea neo-Nazi by Andrew Anglin (whose account was soon closed again), a far-right conspiracy theorist by Alex Jonesa supporter of white supremacy By Nick Fuentes and of course Donald Trump’s.
Musk justified his decision by the fact that the previous Twitter was politically inclined to the liberal left (whatever it is in the United States), so by removing the bans, he only corrected the situation.
The foundation of the already flimsy reasoning crumbled when Musk began to position himself more and more firmly on the lines of right-wing conservatives in the American culture wars in his own publications. The billionaire roared about the woke virus, the population replacement theory and of course the dangers of socialism.
Less surprisingly, the amount of hate speech and disinformation in the service that became X has grown strongly. published by the EU last year the report according to X, of all social media services, X has relatively the most disinformation. Musk himself is shared on several occasions wrong information to nearly 200 million followers.
Advertisers shy away
So it’s no wonder that advertisers have started to avoid the service. After Musk’s Twitter deals, the company’s revenue, which runs on advertising revenue, has halved. The banks that provided loans for the purchase have reduced the values of the loans in their account books by up to 70 percent.
In some other company, this might lead to management self-reflection. X, on the other hand, has interpreted the cessation of advertising as an illegal boycott and has sued the advertisers. Musk, on the other hand, has urged advertisers to go to hell.
Miraculously, the situation doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. Research company Kantar’s latest statement according to about a quarter of advertisers plan to reduce advertising in X next year.
From a business point of view (and often in general) Musk’s actions look stupid. How can Musk, who has become the richest person in the world, screw up one small social media service so thoroughly.
However, Musk’s actions should not be viewed from a business perspective. Musk didn’t pay $44 billion for a politically neutral platform. He paid for a tool to promote transactions around the world.
Musk’s strategy
The New York Times published in May of the articlewhich opens the anatomy of Musk’s diplomacy. The denigration of the left and liberals in X is part of Musk’s strategy to inflame authoritarian leaders.
Musk has lavishly praised the president of Argentina in X Javier Miles and elevated the libertarian economist to one of the right’s new economists. At the same time, Musk is eyeing Argentina’s lithium reserves, which are important to his other company, Tesla.
In the United States, Musk strongly supports Donald Trump’s presidential bid. In return, Trump has announced that he will include Musk in his administration if he wins the election.
Listen to the episode of Uutispodcast on August 20:
Under last year’s presidential election in Turkey, X was limited by the president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visibility of critical publications in Turkey. Later, Musk visited Erdoğan and the men talked about setting up a car factory in Turkey.
In India, Musk is a bent Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s to censorship demands and blocked dozens of users who are critical of Modi’s regime from accessing their platform. In addition, under Musk, X has removed publications that Modi did not like.
Before Musk, Twitter resisted these demands and even sued the Government of India.
However, Musk is willing to flex his freedom of speech if import duties on electric cars are turned to suit Tesla, as India did this year.
When Musk was asked how the defender of absolute freedom of speech so easily succumbed to censorship, he announced that X is committed to obeying the laws of the countries.
The dispute between Brazil and X
That commitment was quickly forgotten when a Brazilian Supreme Court judge ordered X to close the accounts of several users. The accounts belong to the former president Jair Bolsonaro to supporters.
Bolsonaro belongs to Musk’s political inner circle. Bolsonaro’s administration approved the operation of Musk’s SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service in Brazil at high speed a couple of years ago.
The men have praised each other a lot, and when Bolsonaro lost the presidential election in the fall of 2022, Musk began to doubt out loud that Twitter’s old management had influenced his friend’s defeat. Musk took the reins into his own hands and forbade the employees of the company he just bought from following the service’s election rules.
These rules include, among other things, the removal of publications that distort the election results.
In January 2023, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters will storm Brazil’s congressional building, the Supreme Court and the president’s office. As in the United States a couple of years earlier, the protesters had convinced each other on social media that the election had been stolen.
A Supreme Court judge from this lie Alexandre de Moraes tried to cut off the wings by demanding the closure of the accounts of Bolsonaro’s supporters. At first, X accepted the judge’s demands, but soon turned his back. When the company refused to appoint a legal representative in Brazil as required by the court, de Moraes decided to block access to the messaging service X.
In terms of freedom of speech, de Moraes’ actions are problematic and Musk has good reasons to oppose it.
However, it is worth asking whether Musk is defending more freedom of speech or his own political capital in Brazil.