A long, long time ago, I wrote my opinions on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook in the context of their legal standing and liabilities. My point was that they were simply places to post content; therefore the platforms themselves should be no more liable for their content, than the phone company was for, say, burglaries planned by phone.
Unfortunately, that may be legally correct (it hasn’t been tested well enough in court), but the practice is that the platforms — and here, I’m talking Twitter since I am on it and not on Facebook — act as if they would be liable.
That is, Twitter takes it upon itself to censor content and users, and provide “warnings” that some content may offend some precious eyeballs. And it makes those decisions on its own, with no specific Federal guidance as to what should define “offensive.”
It was my point in the earlier piece that the platform companies should, by statute, be held harmless from suits or criminality regarding content posted by, in this case, Twitter users — providing that Twitter in turn was constrained from removing, editing, or placing warnings on, any content without being ordered to do so by a court of law under due process (i.e., with the poster afforded the right to defend their posting and a specific accusation the poster could then challenge prior to its removal).
As I write this, rumors abound that Elon Musk’s offer to buy a controlling stake in Twitter may be accepted by the company’s Board of Directors as early as today. There already commentaries a-flying — Musk himself has solicited them — as to what he should do assuming he does take over.
These suggestions have ranged from the obvious, such as granting former president Trump his account back, to publishing the algorithms by which content is provided (or suppressed).
I have my own.
To Mr. Musk, I would start by saying for the record that I applaud your takeover of the company and sincerely hope you will be successful in doing so. The fact is that competitors to Twitter have arisen since Mr. Trump’s banishment, but have not been very successful and serve to have diluted the landscape, where an unregulating Twitter would serve as a comfortable and very successful platform.
I only have one request of you. Pretty much just one.
I ask that in acting as if Twitter were indeed a free and open platform, you declare that Twitter will no longer make any internal determinations to remove content, remove accounts, suppress “likes”, edit the number of followers, or provide any labeling of content.
In other words, Twitter will effectively ignore the content of its own platform posted by its users.
If — and only if — Twitter suspects that its platform has been used to post content that would constitute criminality under the laws of the United States, then its policy would be solely to bring the content to law enforcement, whereupon the government can make a determination, following due process, and through court order direct Twitter to remove the content.
The obvious corollary is that while Twitter would no longer arbitrarily remove content or users, or flag either, it would still need to serve its users by providing content of relevance. Some form of content analysis would be necessary.
However, I urge you to publish the algorithms by which content is determined to be relevant to a given user, such that if I am a user, I can readily determine how I have been profiled by Twitter such that I am seeing the content in my timeline — and reach out to Twitter to adjust accordingly. Candor. Openness. Glasnost.
Finally, I would ask that Twitter Support be given different marching orders. If something seems to be amiss with my account, I want to be able to ask someone. If it takes two days to answer, fine. But I want an actual reply with a name attached, and not the black hole that inquiries go to and emerge from — sometimes.
Mr. Musk, you have a lot to do, but I feel you are coming from the right place. When you are buying a company that allows and account for the Ayatollah but not for President Trump, at least some of the fixes are obvious.
Copyright 2014-2022 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? Forward it to your friends! There's a new piece or so from Bob often, here on Substack. Subscribe please (it’s cheap!) to see all of them, at robertsutton.substack.com. Sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu.