This Is How Musk’s Acquisition Of Twitter Might Affect Arab Activists

Sara Andalousi | 2 years ago

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Billionaire Elon Musk described himself as a "free speech absolutist," and last month he reached an agreement with Twitter to acquire it for $44 billion, sparking American and European fears that the social network could see a torrent of hateful messages. The freedom that Musk advocates would be on the line in Arab countries, where critics say authoritarian governments use the platform to track and discredit opponents and spread disinformation.

Announcing his deal 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."

While the International Federation of Journalists saw this acquisition as a "threat to pluralism and press freedom" and "a breeding ground for disinformation."

In the Arab region where local media is under state control, millions of people rely on social media platforms to follow the news and express their opinions. Twitter and Facebook demonstrated their ability to influence real-life events during the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. Yet, many democratic gains were rolled back, in part because governments were able to track dissidents' activities on social media and arrest critics.

 

Intimidating Activists

Mark Owen Jones, the author of the forthcoming Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East and assistant professor of Middle Eastern studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, said that some countries have chosen Twitter to intimidate activists.

He told Reuters: "Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter will simply exacerbate the problems we see in the region and increase the potential for Twitter to be used as a tool of censorship and repression.”

He explained, "Musk's ideology (anything is acceptable) will play into the hands of authoritarian countries that use Twitter to create fake accounts and intimidate others under the guise of freedom of expression."

Musk struck a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter on April 25, a deal that would give him control of the social media platform and turn the group from a publicly listed company to a private company.

“It is much easier to criticize the platform from outside by saying that it does not support freedom of expression than it is to manage it and implement its content policies,” said Joshua Tucker, co-director of the Center for the Study of Social Media and Politics at New York University.

In an interview with AFP, Tucker indicated that making Twitter available to "conservative politicians," led by Trump, who announced his refusal to return to the platform, would be a message from the founder of Tesla. But he considered that "there is a real difference between this kind of important steps and the daily management of the platform, which is subject to moderation mechanisms designed to counteract offensive comments or those that contain threats of violence." "For what kind of content is Musk going to back off?" Tucker asked.

Maryam Al-Khawaja, a Bahraini activist who lives in self-exile in the United States and whose father is serving a life sentence for his role in the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain, said that Twitter was an effective tool during the 2011 uprising. The app quickly became a target site for people. She pointed out that "Twitter was already full of the problem of harassment, and this will only increase."

The Egyptian authorities prosecuted activists because of posts on social media, including human rights defender Hossam Bahgat, who imposed a fine of 10,000 pounds on him, after he accused the Electoral Commission on Twitter of fraud in 2021. Amnesty International believes that Twitter bears the responsibility of protecting the right to live without discrimination or violence.

 

Eliminating Spam Option

Some political activists expect that Musk's leadership will be less moderate and that he will restore banned accounts, including that of former US President Donald Trump. Trump welcomed Musk's acquisition of Twitter but confirmed that he would not return to the platform, and a few days ago he launched an account on his own platform Truth Social.

Musk called for modifications to be made to facilitate the use of the service, such as the edit button and the elimination of "spam bots" or spam programs that send huge amounts of unwanted tweets.

In 2020, Twitter removed thousands of accounts linked to Egypt, Honduras, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Serbia, either to receive directions from governments or to promote pro-government content.

In 2019, Twitter confirmed that it had deleted nearly 6,000 accounts as part of a state-backed information operation that originated in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states do not tolerate dissent or public criticism and ban political parties and protests. It and other Arab countries use criminal and cybercrime laws to limit freedom of expression on the Internet.

The head of the Gulf department at the Foundation for Democracy Now for the Arab World, Abdullah Al-Awda, is aware of the consequences of using Twitter in Saudi Arabia. He is the son of prominent Saudi Islamic preacher Salman al-Awda, one of the dozens of clerics, activists, and intellectuals who have been arrested in the kingdom since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman came to power in 2017. The preacher Salman Al-Awda, who was attracting a large number of followers on social media, was arrested In September 2017, at his home, a few hours after he posted a tweet urging Qatar and Saudi Arabia to end the diplomatic crisis. He had previously criticized Riyadh over human rights violations.

“Twitter accounts should be hard to hack,” Al-Awda told Reuters, referring to a 2019 case in which the US Department of Justice accused two former Twitter employees and a third man from Saudi Arabia of spying for the kingdom by searching for private data of users.

 

Wide Controversy

European Union officials and digital rights activists were quick to stress that focusing on freedom of expression at the expense of the security of users on the platform will not work after the 27-nation bloc consolidated its position as a global leader in the face of the influence of tech giants.

As for the White House, it announced that regardless of who owns or manages Twitter, President Joe Biden, who himself uses the platform, is concerned about the power of giant social media platforms, and confirmed that we will continue to work to repeal Law 230 that protects Internet companies from accountability for content posted by users. He will support tightening transparency and anti-trust measures against technology companies.

Experts are waiting to see how Musk tackles the complex equation of moderating and controlling content. NAACP President Derek Johnson summed up these concerns: "Mr. Musk: freedom of speech is great, hate speech is unacceptable."

"The last thing we need is for Twitter to turn a blind eye to violent speech against users," said Michael Kleinman, director of technology and human rights at Amnesty International.

Musk tweeted that there is an "antibody-like reaction from those who fear freedom of expression," and he considered it "very expressive." American conservatives and supporters of far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro praised his project, calling it the end of a form of "censorship."

Arab activists along with the global community are eager to see how the world's richest man will rearrange things on a network of 217 million daily active users, more than 80 percent of whom are outside the United States.