On Elon Musk And Free Speech

Let’s start this off by noting that I actually think that Elon Musk sometimes receives both too much criticism from some circles and too much praise from others. I think he deserves tremendous praise for taking visions that, at the time, seemed nearly impossible, and then making them real. From electric vehicles with Tesla, to space flight with SpaceX, it’s unquestionable that he’s driven tremendous innovation. And even in areas like Starlink, which has been unfortunately overhyped, he deserves kudos for actually building a working (if somewhat limited) satellite internet service. And that’s not even getting into his various efforts with trying to create a hyperloop, or trying to deal with transportation issues via The Boring Company. Again, some of these have been massively overhyped, but Musk, unlike many others, gets a vision and then acts on it, and I find that commendable — and helpful in driving innovation forward.

That said, it often feels like there are a few too many times when he seems to think that whatever idea just popped into his head is the most brilliant idea in the world, and it’s not possible that people who have actually thought these things through might have some further insight. And, again, it’s perhaps not too surprising why he would think that. There were tremendous naysayers for all of his other endeavors, and by sticking (mostly) to his vision, he’s made them successful, and made himself the richest man ever.

But, sometimes, he steps into areas where it might help to have a little humility and recognize that perhaps things are slightly more complex than you realize. This morning, Musk tweeted out a poll, saying: “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?”

As I post this “No” is winning at about 70% to 30%, which is pretty much to be expected (I actually expected “No” to be even higher). Because if you ask people about it, many people — especially the Elon Musk fan groupies, of which there are many — will revert to “the narrative” that has made the rounds these days, that Twitter and other social media companies are too aggressive in their moderation practices.

Of course, “the narrative” misses a lot. In fact, if you actually follow these things, and understand the history, you’d know that Twitter is, actually, significantly more hands off than almost any other social media company that reached the size Twitter has. But you would also know that no website that accepts user content can stand to not do some moderation. If you do none at all, not only will you face legal problems (child sexual abuse material, copyright infringement, etc.), but your service will turn into a cesspool of spam, abuse, and harassment, driving users away.

So every website has to create rules, and then has to create policies and train teams and technology to enforce those rules. And, as always, that’s where the impossibility of content moderation at scale comes into play. Some people are always going to disagree with moderation choices. I frequently think that Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. make serious mistakes. But, again, that’s because any site is going to make “mistakes.” Sometimes those mistakes are because they mess up the rules. Sometimes it’s because people interpret rules differently. Sometimes it’s because we don’t know all the details. And sometimes it’s because everyone judges things differently, and so there’s always going to be a level of disagreement about how to enforce any rules.

Indeed, this is part of the reason why I always find it amusing when a new Twitter-wannabe enters the market and screams about how they are going to “support free speech, unlike Twitter.” Gab claimed that, and then couldn’t find enough users to actually want to stick around its cesspool. Then there was Parler, which initially claimed that it would only moderate based on the 1st Amendment, but then started just making up its own rules on who to ban (and its then CEO even bragged about “banning leftist trolls”) once it realized that such a standard makes no sense. Or how about GETTR, set up by a former Trump advisor, that still pretends to be about free speech, but bans accounts of anyone who mocks one of its biggest investors. And, of course, there’s now Trump’s own Truth Social, which makes clear it will ban users for making fun of Trump, and has already banned people for mocking its CEO, Devin Nunes?

The point is that every website will have rules and policies, and there has to be some way to enforce those rules — and that can include account suspensions and bans at times. It’s okay to argue that some sites moderate badly. Or that there might be a better way. I, personally, still think we’d be better off with social media being a protocol with lots of implementations, rather than controlled by one company, because that would allow for much more experimentation.

But, part of the “principles of free speech” is that private property owners have the right to set the rules for you using their property for speech. And if you violate them, you might get kicked off.

Indeed, Elon Musk knows this, because he has quite a long track record of retaliating against people for their speech. Just recently we posted about Tesla firing an employee for posting critical footage to YouTube. I tweeted this point to Musk in response to his poll:

For hours now I’ve been having various Musk fans trying to explain to me that it’s fine for him to have fired the employee because he broke some sort of policy (which policy differs depending on which slavishly devoted fan is responding). But… that proves my point. There’s a point at which pretty much everyone recognizes that violating a policy might lead to a consequence, and that consequence can include being banned/fired. Whether or not we agree or disagree with whether the consequences are proportionate is certainly a judgment call.

But it’s not about the “principles of free speech.”

Indeed, if we’re going to talk about the “principles of free speech” and Elon Musk, one might point out that he fired a union organizer at Tesla. Or how he banned journalist/investor Stewart Alsop from buying a Tesla because Musk didn’t like Alsop’s (rather mild) criticism of how Musk ran the Model X launch event. Or how a blogger was intimidated into no longer writing about Tesla by threatening to sue the guy. There are numerous examples of this.

All of this reminds me quite clearly of Jacob Mchangama’s new book on the history of free speech, where time and time again, people declare support for “the principles of free speech,” but as soon as they’re able to, they try to use their powers to silence (or even kill) critics.

The “principles of free speech” often are a lot more complex than they seem. Only fools and naïve faux intellectuals actually believe that the principles of free speech mean that private companies must allow all speech. Because that neither (1) works nor (2) enables free speech. As we’ve discussed for years, allowing different companies to choose their own content moderation practices and their own rules is what actually enables more free speech — because it allows any company to feel comfortable hosting speech.

If you force companies to host “all” speech, then you run into a series of problems. First, the spam, garbage and harassment problem. And this actually harms “the principles of free speech” by causing lots of people to go away and not take part. But by allowing the wider internet to exist, and allowing different companies or groups to set up their own rules and their own enforcement mechanisms, that actually enables more of a culture of free speech because people can vote with their feet and find the spaces where the are able to speak and where they are most comfortable.

Musk’s implied suggestion that because Twitter has some moderation practices that he disagrees with that it’s somehow against the idea of free speech is silly in the extreme. It shows a pointed lack of understanding of the various challenges, and the ridiculous number of tradeoffs that a company like Twitter goes through in developing its trust & safety policies and enforcement practices.

Musk hints in a follow up tweet that if people vote to say that Twitter does not “rigorously adhere” to the “free speech principle” that he will take some sort of action. Some people assume that means he would buy Twitter (something he could afford to do if he wanted to), or that he would start up his own competitor (an increasingly crowded space). If he were to actually do that, he might want to look closely at how that’s worked for that long list of wannabes, and how their promises to naively “support free speech” played out in practice. Yes, maybe Musk would do something different. Maybe his version of Twitter will somehow be the “Tesla” version that pushes through where others failed.

But maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason why every website learns that you have to do some moderation. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll come to understand that the “principles of free speech” also include the right of private companies to set their own policies and to exclude those who violate those policies. I mean, usually, that’s done in a more systemized manner than Musk banning a journalist for criticizing him, but, hey, everyone makes mistakes sometimes.