There are questions once again about the future of the social media
platform, Twitter and what it should and should not allow online.
Specifically, how far should the company go when it comes to permitting
free speech? What should be taken down when it comes becomes misinformation?
And does the company adequately guard against hate mongering speech?
William Branham explores some of those questions. Judy Elon musk
spending ownership of Twitter has been driving a lot of these questions
recently. Most. CAS said he wants to overturn some of Twitter's moderation
policies and allows some suspended users like former President Trump
to return to the platform. But what is acceptable and what isn't
and who gets to decide?
For example, over the weekend Yay! The artist formerly known as Kanye
West Tweeted, a now deleted anti Semitic comment. His Twitter account
was locked for violating Twitter's policies. So will these kinds
of bands and blocks continue under new leadership for more on all
of this, I'm joined by Charlie Ward Cell. He's the author of the
Atlantic newsletter called Galaxy Brain, where he writes about technology,
media and politics, Charlie. It's great to have you back on the news
hour. What do you make of this Kanye West episode
I mean, isn't that
Pretty clear cut case of hateful rhetoric, Or does it in your mind
underscore some of the larger issues here? Well, I think it's a great
example of some of the policies that Twitter has put into place since
around 2017 around content, moderation around its own rules and code
of conduct in terms of use, And this is this is Twitter enforcing
it rather quickly. I think there is a large consensus that you know
that he overstepped.
The boundaries of what Twitter deems as acceptable speech and they
took action.
But I think in this broader context you're looking at the you know
the difficulty and the spotlight of content. Moderation on big platforms
like Twitter, Big social networks. I mean, this is you're not just
going to have, um, you know, trolls harassing people. You're going
to have these huge power users.
Who you know, are in the middle of our public and cultural spotlight.
Trying to either press the boundaries or saying, you know
Patently unacceptable things, and there's going to be all this pressure.
So it sort of speaks to the way that these content moderation conversations
aren't academic. They're they're real. They're happening all the
time, and the stakes are high. I mean, a lot of the critics of the
Social media company's Twitter included argue one that conservatives
are discriminated against and that too
The policies are policed in a somewhat willy nilly fashion. I mean,
for example, I mean, Kanye West gets booted for anti Semitism. But
the Iranian government's Twitter account, which regularly spouts
anti Semitism is alive and well, I mean, is there a good faith argument
to be made that these policies are either a discriminatory or be
not really working currently?
Well, I think they're always very difficult to enforce right. The
hardest part about content. Moderation is moderating at scale, right,
And there's always going to be lots of pressures from outside organizations
and you know, content. Moderation is even though we don't like to
talk about it this way it is, you know, frequently does have ideological,
um, components to it, and that's what makes it difficult, right?
It is part of this political conversation. I do want to say, though,
to push back a little.
You know, there's this idea that it is content moderation has harmed
conservatives, or is it unfairly biased towards conservatives want
to be very clear that you know a lot of the work looking into this
and looking into the enforcement also shows that conservative politicians
and shock jocks and potential candidates
Are pushing the boundaries a lot more with what is, you know, acceptable
speech. They're the ones who are kind of, you know, trying to draw
a big tech companies into this because you know honesty. A lot of
times. Getting their content moderated by a big tech company is almost
the goal because then they can say they've been censored. It's very
good for their sort of culture war hence.
Right. It's that it's that I'm going to work the refs as much as
I possibly can. I mean, let's say that Musk does take over Twitter
and does loosen some of the rains you touched on this earlier. But
do you think more loosened open? Twitter is a net positive net negative
for for our body politic. I want to be clear that what we have seen
so far from Elon Musk is an incredibly
Shallow idea of what content moderation is and really, just the challenge
of it right when, when he back last April, when he was sort of floating
this idea, he spoke with a couple of people he gave a. He spoke at
Ted talks in Vancouver, and he was floating these ideas that had
either already been tried by Twitter or ideas that you know people
who have tried them have realized patently don't work.
He seems to be sort of coming at this issue the way that a lot of
the tech platform founders came at it, you know, say Back in 45 6006.
It's really permissive idea of speech that didn't really take into
account the fact that you know you're going to be dealing with political
entities. You might be dealing with terroristic entities you might
be dealing with, you know, inauthentic boat campaigns. There's just
so much to this, and he's sort of coming at it sort of wide eyed
and and and
Very confidently, saying, I've had a lot of success in one realm
of the tech industry, and surely it will translate into this realm
and I don't think that's true.
Are there good examples when you look out there on the landscape
of social media platforms that you think do a good job of both keeping
healthy debate going while keeping the hateful, awful stuff at bay.
I think Reddit is a platform that initially really struggled with
their sense of moderation, but has found a good middle ground right?
They have
Community moderators who sort of keep their communities in check
and set their own standards and then read it will come in. If things
get out of hand or if a communities you know, hateful rhetoric has
spreads to another community. And and they have. They have done a
lot of work, kicking off communities that are toxic. And I think
this is an important point about the Internet, which is that every
community every forum, whether large or small, relies on moderators.
They set the standards for discourse there, and they make it a space
that
People want to be it.
Charlie Wars. L writes the Galaxy Brain newsletter. Thank you so
much for being here.