Freedom of speech until it affects their reach
Elon Musk's Twitter censors content at the behest of an authoritarian leader - proving he's not much different than the other tech company leaders after all.
Although it seems like every day he finds a new way to make me cringe, I still find myself taking an anti-anti-Elon stance in online bun fights about what he's doing to Twitter.
At the core of my argument is that Twitter was already a cesspool of disinformation, bullying and life-destroying mobbery before he took it over, and I remain unconvinced it's really gotten any worse since he found $44 billion in his couch cushions to buy it. (For one thing, some of the shady people he's allowed back onto the platform have already been re-suspended.)
Musk the great free-speech warrior caving to the Indian government's demand to block a documentary critical of Narenda Modi illustrates his absolutely massive hypocrisy. But it's not just Twitter bending the knee to an elected but increasingly authoritarian leader:
Twitter and YouTube censored a report critical of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in coordination with the government of India, according to a top Indian official. Officials called for the Big Tech companies to take action against a BBC documentary exploring Modi’s role in a genocidal 2002 massacre in the Indian state of Gujarat, which the officials deemed a “propaganda piece.”
In a series of posts, Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser at the Indian government’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, denounced the BBC documentary as “hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage.” He said that both Twitter and YouTube had been ordered to block links to the film, before adding that the platforms “have complied with the directions.” Gupta’s statements coincided with posts from Twitter users in India who claimed to have shared links to the documentary but whose posts were later removed and replaced with a legal notice.
“The government has sent hundreds of requests to different social media platforms, especially YouTube and Twitter, to take down the posts that share snippets or links to the documentary,” Indian journalist Raqib Hameed Naik told The Intercept. “And shamefully, the companies are complying with their demands and have taken down numerous videos and posts.”
[…]
While Musk has been glad to stand up to suppression of speech against conservatives in the United States — something that he has described as nothing less than “a battle for the future of civilization” — he appears to be failing at the far graver challenge of standing up to the authoritarian demands of foreign governments.
After publication of this story, Musk, who helms Twitter’s communications efforts himself, tweeted a response. “First I’ve heard,” Musk wrote. “It is not possible for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight, while still running Tesla and SpaceX, among other things.”
YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon told The Intercept that the BBC documentary had been removed from the platform because of a copyright claim by the BBC, but declined to comment on takedown demands from the Indian government.
Pushing back against censorship of the BBC documentary, members of Parliament from the opposition All India Trinamool Congress party Mahua Moitra and Derek O’Brien defiantly posted links to it online.
“Sorry, Haven’t been elected to represent world’s largest democracy to accept censorship,” Moitra posted. “Here’s the link. Watch it while you can.” Moitra’s post is still up, but the link to the documentary no longer works. Moitra had posted a link to the Internet Archive, presumably hoping to get around the block of the BBC, but the Internet Archive subsequently took the link down. She has since posted the audio version on Telegram.
It's the Internet Archive banning that really caught my attention. I thought only Taylor Lorenz had that kind of power, amirite?
And this is far from the first time tech companies, normally so eager to proclaim their commitment to openness and transparency and freedom, have done the bidding of dictatorships:
Apple has been accused of selling out human rights for the sake of profit by cooperating with authoritarian censorship demands in China and Russia, according to two reports issued on Thursday.
The reports, "Apps at Risk: Apple's Censorship and Compromises in Hong Kong" and "United Apple: Apple's Censorship and Compromises in Russia," were released by the Apple Censorship Project, which is run by free speech advocacy group GreatFire.
"As our two reports show, examples of Apple’s censorship abound," said Benjamin Ismail, campaign and advocacy director at GreatFire and project director of GreatFire's Apple Censorship project, in a statement.
It notes that the Hong Kong App Store in November 2022 was missing 2,370 apps available elsewhere. In China's App Store, 10,837 apps are missing and in Russia's App Store, that figure is 2,754.
[…]
The Russia report explores differences in the way that Russian and Chinese authorities enforce censorship demands, but reaches similar conclusions about how Apple operates. It statesthat from 2018 until 2022, Apple has appeared to comply more readily with censorship requests from the Kremlin.
"If Apple’s compliance with requests for censorship is best illustrated by cases of app removals from the iOS App Store," the report says. "Russia’s innovative and extensive oppression has also led to censorship within software (LGBTQ+ watch faces), accessories (LGBTQ+ watch bands), software-based cartography (Crimea), protocols (Private Relay), and even the design of iOS (Russian iOS)."
The Russia report, citing Apple's removal of LGBTQ+ apps in furtherance of state-backed homophobia, calls out "the insincerity of Apple’s self-proclaimed support for LGBTQ+ Rights."
Musk is the lightning rod of the moment, but I don't think he's any kind of aberration compared to his fellow tech leaders. If anything, the problem is that he's too similar to them.
Of course, there's a kind of "realpolitik" argument to be made for blocking content in certain parts of the world when so commanded by unsavory governments. If you do business in a country, it stands to reason that you must follow the laws of that country. 'Tis the price of doing business.
I just wish they'd be open and unrepentant about it instead of proclaiming their principled commitment to freedom and then hoping no one notices their deals with the devil.
It's kind of like when one of these Mohammed-cartoons/Koran-burning controversies flare up and media outlets which wouldn't think twice about showing a photo of, say, "Piss-Christ" insist they won't publish these offending images because of "sensitivity to their readers" or some other BS they came up with.
I have much more respect for those honest enough to say they won't show the images because they don't want their offices bombed.
Hey, speaking of which...
Re-set the "days since some fringe character in Scandinavia made Muslim extremists angry" counter to zero:
On Saturday, far-right demonstrators burned a Quran and chanted anti-Muslim slogans in front of Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. Ankara immediately denounced the act, as well as Sweden’s granting of a permit to the right-wing group to hold the demonstration. Turkey also canceled an upcoming visit from Sweden’s defense chief that would have focused on its NATO membership.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the vile attack on our holy book … Permitting this anti-Islam act, which targets Muslims and insults our sacred values, under the guise of freedom of expression is completely unacceptable,” Turkey’s foreign ministry said.
The Quran burning was led by Rasmus Paludan, who leads the Danish far-right political party Hard Line. Swedish authorities say the protest was legal under the country’s free speech laws, but Sweden’s leaders condemned the act, calling it “appalling.”
Normally, this would be a dog-bites-man story. What makes this particular incident a man-bites-dog story is that one of our "allies" may be using it as an excuse to keep Sweden from joining NATO:
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