Nov 29, 2022

How Twitter’s Free Speech Policy for Populists Hurts American Democracy

Written By: Devin Rauscher

On Thursday, October 27, 2022, Elon Musk officially closed his $44 billion deal to purchase the social media site Twitter. In the following weeks, he fired several of Twitter’s top financial and legal executives, instated and then retracted a new plan for buying verification checkmarks, and laid off half of Twitter’s employees, including those who publicly criticized him on the site. One of the most significant things Musk has done since purchasing Twitter is reinstate the accounts of right-wing politicians and political figures, including former President Donald Trump, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, and public figure Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. This action, promoted as furthering democracy, actually helps erode it by giving these populists a greater platform. 

To understand exactly why this is, one must establish three central points: first, that Twitter is a viable and influential form of media; second, that the individuals allowed to return to their platforms are right-wing populists; and third, that free speech is not a guaranteed protection for democracy.

According to a 2021 study by the Pew Research Center, 23% of American adults use Twitter, and that number jumps to 42% in the 18-29 age range. 69% of U.S. Twitter users say that they get news from the site, and of those users, 70% of them turn to Twitter first for breaking news. The majority of all users report that Twitter has increased their understanding of current events and how politically engaged they feel. It is also of note that U.S.-based journalists favor Twitter as a social media site. Given Twitter’s wide use as a primary platform for political figures, journalists, and news-consumers, it is considered in this analysis to be a part of the free press, one of the key institutions essential to a functioning democracy.

In this analysis, we must also interrogate which accounts have been reinstated since Musk’s takeover, namely popular right-wing politicians former President Donald Trump and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and political hopeful Ye. Trump was permanently banned in January 2021 due to “risk of further incitement of violence” following the January 6th insurrection and has not returned to the site; as reported on Fox News, he remains on his own social networking site, Truth Social. Here, he appeals directly to a polarized extremist audience, but the impact of this site is significantly lesser than that of Twitter. On the other hand, after Greene was permanently banned in 2022 for breaking Twitter’s policy of spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, she returned to posting inflammatory cries against the political left and promoting her legislation for “Vaccine Victims.” This past October, music artist and producer Ye was banned from Twitter for tweeting antisemetic threats and comments; since his account was reinstated, he has returned to the site and launched a 2024 U.S. presidential bid. Each of these political figures are known for encouraging ideological and affective political polarization through incendiary language, promoting hyper-partisan legislation, and defending the attempted antidemocratic coup d’etat that occurred on January 6, 2021. 

Defenders of the decision to allow these users back onto Twitter claim that it is a matter of free speech and protecting democracy, including Musk himself, but this argument does not address the potential of unfettered free speech to erode democracy. As Huq and Ginsburg establish in “How to Lose a Constitutional Democracy,” free speech protections do not prevent attacks on democratic institutions like the legal system and the free press, the spread of false information, and the nondisclosure of information. This is particularly of note when looking at the case of the January 6th insurrection, an attempted coup d’etat supported and directly encouraged by Trump, Greene, and Ye to this day. The latter two continue to promote and defend these insurrectionists on their newly-reinstated Twitter accounts, as well as promote and create very biased, polarizing content. Biased media affects voters’ political preferences, and in cases like that of these politicians, the persuasion rate will be even greater due to its extremist nature. This is particularly dangerous when you consider the long-term effects of exposure to far-right media: as examined by Barrera, Guriev, Henry, and Zhuravskaya, this exposure to rhetoric and misinformation can increase voting intentions for far-right extremist leaders, even when confronted with the truth. This deepens polarization, which during a time when the United States is dangerously divided, further erodes the country’s democracy.

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7 Comments

  1. Isabella Rivera

    I think you give great insight into the effect that strong political personalities have on people that use Twitter. I am not sure if I necessarily agree with your opinion though. While I do think people like Donald Trump and Representative Green were utilizing Twitter in a negative way, I don’t think they were targeting democracy. Whether we like the outcome of the 2016 election or not, Donald Trump became our president. Based on studies, Donald Trump is the only President in history who actually utilized a social media platform like Twitter in order to influence election results. While I think Trump does have authoritarian tendencies, his political strategy in using Twitter did ultimately help him become elected. Because of this, Twitter had to update their policies as a political leader could now easily and rapidly spread around any type of information he wanted. Yet I do think their decision to ban him from the platform was a political statement in itself. So, both the company and the president made political charged decisions.
    The same study talks about the fact that congressional elections have not been influenced by Twitter, so banning other political officers is a limit of free speech. And while hate speech and free speech are very closely linked, it is hard to appropriately measure what is hate speech and what is free speech especially on social media. I think there must be limitations on leaders, and I don’t think Twitter was in the wrong with their decisions to ban, but I also do not believe this to be a huge democratic issue. Twitter is a private company with the ability to do what they want with their company, and now that a billionaire owns it and is making changes people have the right to stay on the platform or leave it. Social media sites die out all the time.

    Sources: https://www.princeton.edu/~fujiwara/papers/SocialMediaAndElections.pdf

  2. Samuel Soman

    I think you make interesting points throughout this article. Initially, when users like Trump were taken off the platform, the most sound rationale was that it was a private platform and was within Twitter’s rights to do so. So by the same logic, as Elon Musk is the new owner, it’s within his rights to allow them back onto the platform. Whether or not their allowance back onto the platform is harmful to democracy is also a topic that could be debated. Musk’s actions, as pointed out, weren’t unconstitutional, and I remember when those users were initially banned, an interesting conversation was brought about. Limiting free speech is a slippery slope as although Trump and co’s rhetoric is tangibly damaging, limiting free speech on social platforms could become a dangerous norm within itself. This norm is conceviably dangerous for several reasons. One is that, as I have aforementioned, Twitter was able to initially ban Trump based on its own discretion as a private entity. So, if Elon Musk decided to go in the opposite direction and ban users that promote democratic values, he could use the precedent of Trump’s banning as justification. In this case, the tool used to counter-enact right-wing rhetoric could be flipped by Musk to become counter-democratic. So by getting rid of Twitter’s initial precedent, Musk is sealing off this ambiguous tool.

    In terms of whether, in the long run, this will be harmful to democracy or not, I think it will depend on various different factors. Right-wing populists are opportunistic in nature, and Trump’s initial meteoric rise was intrinsically linked to the national sentiment of the mid-2010s. As the recent midterm elections have shown, with all Trump-backed candidates losing, his influence has drastically weakened. Now by being allowed back on the platform, his obsoleteness can be showcased along with his rhetoric being picked apart. This would infringe on his victim-trope allure (“big tech is silencing the truth!”), exposing his words to be empty. So, with these two facts in mind, ultimately, his allowance back on the platform could have a net positive outcome. Not necessarily saying it will pan out this way, but it’s just an alternative view.

    • Kaitlin Katirachi

      I’m always one for optimism, and your point about “infringing on [Trump’s] victim-trope allure” is a hopeful one. In theory, Musk’s decision to unban former president Trump from Twitter could have a net-positive outcome. As Devin pointed out, Trump hasn’t really returned to Twitter anyway because of the creation of Truth Social.

      However, I think we need to address the reality of democratic erosion. I do not dispute your point about limiting free speech as a dangerous precedent to set, nor the unbanning of Twitter users as a proper means of “sealing off this ambiguous tool”. Yet, to stop the global problem of democratic erosion companies like Twitter need to put serious thought into making decisions about who they provide a platform for. Devin points out that Twitter is part of the free press, and as such, is critical to maintaining democracy. It is extremely difficult to prevent the spread of misinformation on such a huge site, and when it has the potential to incite violence it becomes an even more contentious problem. Not to mention that firing half of the site’s computer engineers is going to make it harder. Point is, though banning users can be problematic, democratic erosion is a “bigger fish to fry” and allowing right-wing hate speech shouldn’t be a compromise we’re willing to make.

  3. Owen Taylor

    This is a very interesting topic to speak on within the topic of Democratic Erosion. Communication and media are very important within democracies, but when it comes to digital communication like social media, it is not contained to one country. Before the invention of the internet, all forms of the press were based on geography. But now that information is exponentially more accessible it creates a double edge sword for democracies.

    On one hand, social media can be a tool to help fuel communication. It spreads ideas and solutions for our government to the point that every voice can be heard. In a democratic republic, like the United States, typically it is just the represented official voices that are heard. However, social media has brought us back to the Greek origins of pure democracy, where everyone has input.

    However, to your point, the rapid spread of information can lead to the rapid spread of hate speech. To counter this, the public has created “Cancel Culture”, which is to shun those that spread hate speech or commit acts deemed unfit for society. This has next to no effect as the internet solved its own problem by creating forums and groups that will justify and uplift those who are deemed unfit by society and will be picked up and stay in their echo chamber.

    I do think this topic creates an interesting question: If Twitter gets shut down or any form of social media is used to communicate, does that help or hurt society and more specifically democracies? My opinion is that social media will act like a hydra, cut off one head two more will take its place. However, that is a question that has not really needed to be asked as a social media as big as Twitter which is used for political conversations more than most has never been shut down.

  4. Kasey Armstrong

    This post is especially prevalent given the results of the midterm elections, and the ability of many far right election deniers to win public office due to their online presence and support. The impact social media can have on political action can be seen through the incitement of the January 6 insurrection though twitter by former president Trump. The platform provides a space for these populist leaders to share their ideas, and while we can’t censor based solely on political affiliation, it is important to remember that free speech isn’t always protected on these spaces like you mentioned. These platforms have every right to remove individuals who violate their community guidelines, which can include inciting violence or using hate speech. The ability of the far right movement to use social media to spread their messages and misinformation has been a great tool, and it will be interesting to see how newly elected election deniers will use these strategies to their advantage.

  5. Oscar Czarnecki

    This issue is incredibly complex and diverges between both free speech and the existence of fake news and misinformation. I think that free speech when it is not inciting violence or hate speech is necessary in any democracy, especially on twitter which I view personally as one of the only social media sites that has been unblemished by advertising and regulations. I think it is interesting to think about how populists are able to take advantage of the processes of twitter to enhance their political messaging, however the same is done by others. Companies, politicians, and celebrities are able to radically expand their messaging through twitter’s functionality. This sort of democratic erosion is very similar to politicians within a democracy utilizing democratic processes to gain more power for themselves. There should be a way to stop these sort of things from happening but the lines have become more and more blurred. Especially when it comes to social media it is hard to figure out where to draw the line to when it comes to propagating fake news or speech that could lead to democratic erosion.

  6. Abigail Hassan

    Twitter has become the primary platform users use to get accurate, reliable information. Because of this, Twitter should be held to the highest standard of free speech.

    For a platform as important as Twitter to be owned by a person and not a company is terrifying. Twitter is a vital platform for information, so users must be given accurate information. This goal becomes impossible when the company goals are consistently aligned with those of the new owner Elon Musk. For example, the recent reinstatement of former President Donald Trump, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, and public figure Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, serves Musk’s interests rather than the interests of Twitter.

    Polarization is the biggest threat to democracy today, and it is no question that the media contributes to polarization. The political landscape has changed drastically in today’s modern world, adapting to social media and the internet. Allowing politicians to garner support, raise funds, spread messages, and push their campaigns without leaving their homes. The impact of this new online territory in the long term is relatively unknown, as little longitudinal research has been conducted concerning politics and the online sphere. Social media is unique because it often bypasses traditional media gatekeepers; because of this, it has become common in the political world for public officials to make claims about public issues via social media (especially Twitter).

    Protecting free speech online is difficult because no law explicitly states how the federal government should impose free speech. The censorship of speech has created a sizeable gray area regarding free-speech in an online realm. Especially in an age where individuals have the wealth to buy entire media platforms essential to our modern democracy, we must protect free speech. As voters and consumers, we are responsible for seeking out reputable information and using that as a tool to develop our thoughts.

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