Elon Musk explains what he means by free speech, hints at less censorship on Twitter

Free speech. You must be reading and hearing this word more than ever now, thanks to Elon Musk, who recently bought Twitter because he felt the microblogging platform does not promote free speech. The Tesla CEO has time and again explained why free speech is necessary for Twitter — one of the most influential social network websites. But his words and intent could still not convince some people. So, for them, Musk has come up with a clarification on what he means by the word "free speech."

"By "free speech", I simply mean that which matches the law," said Musk on Twitter. "I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people."

This tweet was in reply to his previous tweet that said, "The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all." Basically, Musk criticised people who were criticising his move. Among these critics were human rights groups as well, who said that allowing free speech without any guidelines would lead to an explosion of hate speech content on the platform. Because free speech means no censorship in its true essence. Some of the people who were in favour also needed some kind of reassurance from Musk because Twitter has had a terrible hate speech problem and free speech, if implemented in its truest form, would just aggravate that.

For Musk, free speech is the holy grail. Nearly all of his conversations (and pitches) around Twitter are based on free speech. For instance, right after he made the announcement of the buyout, Musk said, "Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated."

But critics were not convinced by Musk's commitment because of his past. That is because Musk has centred all of his talk and his vision for a free speech-driven community on Twitter. He believes that Twitter has become a town square - a term that ideally should mean an open space where a community gathers to deliberate, but in the tech world, it has become representative of a place where millions of people cram themselves in a single, unfettered space and just yell at each other. Musk wants free speech to propagate on the platform, but his idea is based only on the company's policies for censorship. He has not said much about the restrictions that citizens of many countries face if they want to exercise their right to free expression.

"I think broadly, the civilizational risk is decreased the more we can increase the trust of Twitter as a public platform," said Musk during his TED interview with Chris Anderson. His statements are reflective of the notion that Twitter represents the global community and giving them a platform that promotes free speech would manipulate their real-world engagements, say, with their governments. Most countries demand social networking websites, such as Twitter, abide by their censorship laws. For instance, India has mandated that every social media company should have an officer that will talk to the government on sensitive matters. Musk has not shared a vision on how he would tackle a problem like this where the governments dictate the censorship policy of a social networking company. Free speech, otherwise, would simply go for a toss.

Twitter's existing policies that vary from country to country are not up to the mark, according to Musk. But his idea of taking control of Twitter and turning it into a private company is not good either. As a public company, ideas are bounced off and then agreed to after consensus. But for someone who owns a company entirely, taking a decision does not require seeking approval. The concern of arbitrary may just become real. Moreover, Musk has engagements other than Twitter. He owns Tesla and SpaceX, both of which need interaction with various governments more frequently. That gives them leverage over Musk's new company, Twitter.

Free speech or not, Musk has some grand ideas for Twitter, but whether users will get to see them is something only time will tell.