Image from Unsplash. Created by lemono.
Musk made his decision to bring Donald Trump back to Twitter by polling people on Twitter. Note that he didn’t poll the people who actually work at Twitter and have some understanding of the problems created by deliberately spreading dangerous lies — lies like “COVID is a hoax,” for example. Or “The election was stolen.”
In response to his poll, which resulted in a “yes” from 52% of those responding, Musk said, “The people have spoken.” Musk must think that the people who still use Twitter are the only people who count.
There is another problem with Musk’s methodology. According to Alex Stamos, of the Stanford Internet Observatory, Musk is well aware of Twitter’s “problem with bot accounts.” For all we know, the small majority reflected in Musk’s poll was achieved by voting bots rather than voting people.
“It is definitely possible for small groups to create large numbers of accounts to manipulate features like polls,” according to Stamos.
I wonder how Musk would respond if the police asked to borrow Twitter to poll users before deciding whether or not a serial killer ought to be tried for his crimes. Ridiculous, yes? Yet COVID killed more people than any serial killer in history — and Trump single-handedly, with the help of Twitter, convinced millions that COVID isn’t real, that vaccines don’t work, and that wearing masks means taking away our freedom.
How free is a dead person?
Unfortunately, Musk’s ill-advised decision could have negative consequences for our entire country. That’s why Trump was banned in the first place.
Yet Musk would have us believe Trump was banned from Twitter because Twitter executives don’t believe in free speech. Not so. Trump was banned because he abused his First Amendment right to free speech by using it to feed dangerous lies to the American public. How is it that the so-called genius, Elon Musk, doesn’t understand this distinction?
Let’s break this down: I have a valid driver’s license, so I have a right to drive a car. That doesn’t mean I have a right to run over people with it.
If Musk really cared about free speech, he would not have chosen to fire dozens of Twitter employees for voicing opinions critical of him. Still, now that Musk has publicly offered to reinstate Trump, it would be interesting to see how Musk would respond if Trump were to become critical of him.