Rob van den Hoven van Genderen (Professor in Artificial Intelligence and Robot Law)
Research Group: Law, Technology and Design Thinking
Musk advocates absolute freedom of expression, while Twitter currently still closely monitors the statements of its users. What will be best for the freedom of expression? Do we want back the village square where everyone can say what is on his/her/gender-free mind or is the moderation of Twitter necessary?
The socialist Dutch MEP Paul Tang stated that social media are not different from other media, and they bear the responsibility for editing. This is mainly because of the vast impact of the platforms and the risks that come with that, so one should view the matter as a social mission, mitigating certain risks. He further is positive about choosing different algorithms so one can choose a timeline where so called toxic disagreements are not visible.
My idea, concurring with Musk’s line of thinking, is that freedom of expression is valuable. It should be counterbalanced by itself and the freedom to take (or not to take) notice of other opinions. Moderating is a form of censorship in which the principle of adversarial procedure is completely excluded. Twitter is an open discussion platform, and one should honor that.
One could, though, limit openness by allowing censorship through “notice and take down”. Still, early action, taken without proper research, should be avoided. This is one of the dangers to freedom of expression in a wide sense, because platforms do not want to run any risk and are inclined to ban in their view politically or morally risky or factually questionable opinions as with, for instance, Donald Trump.
On the other hand, one may wonder if there is too little attention for freedom of expression itself, as platforms concentrate on misinformative opinions. While the latter is a real risk, which we certainly are confronted by in these critical times, it remains important to take cognizance of points of view that do not appeal to you and decide for yourself how to react. It would be better to go back to the old adage of “no message to the message”. In a town square you will be corrected if you cross the line and that is how Twitter should work: Twitter should draw explicit lines as to what is allowed and what is not, and censor content accordingly. Whether something is not acceptable in a legal sense is then up to the judge or the Public Prosecution Service.
Musk’s idea to give full transparency to the working of the algorithms and search and destroy bots on the platform improves the openness and trustworthiness of Twitter. One has to open platforms like this to all opinions without hidden censoring. By giving users the choice between algorithms, Twitter would facilitate their possibility to exclude certain opinions. If you do not want to read unwelcome opinions, you have always a choice not to go on Twitter or close your eyes and ears to personally displeasing utterances. The danger of choosing different algorithms is that people just receive opinions they already agree with and avoid all critical observations or discussions.
The current legal mindset is increasingly based on moralism. Authorities are increasingly trying to protect the population against unpleasant opinions and behavior that are not necessarily punishable. This is not in line with Musk’s and my ideas about a platform like Twitter. I think such moralism is a dangerous development, maybe more dangerous than the richest person on earth that promises a free platform to discuss anything without the profits that were essential for the former shareholders. But maybe that is a naïve position…