Elon Musk expects to begin human trials of Neuralink's brain chip in 6 months (Reuters)
Elon Musk, one of the richest people in the world and the current owner of Twitter (by now also the CEO), loves freedom of expression. He believes in this value so much that this week he published a poll to the masses "Should I resign from my position at Twitter" and promised to obey the results of the poll. Unfortunately, 57.5 % decided that he should retire.
What did the free speech knight do a day later? He suggested that from now on it would be better that only owners of "Twitter Blue" (the new paid version of Twitter launched by him) could vote in polls related to the company's policies. The next day, he already had the kindness to respond to the poll which he himself initiated and announced: "I will step down from my position as CEO of Twitter after I find someone stupid enough to agree to take the job."
Well, this is not the first time that Musk's golem ("freedom of expression") has risen up against its creator.
Don't take the Blue Hoy on Twitter for granted.
In a world of fake noses and disinformation, the Blue Hoy gives us certainty that that figure with a public profile (journalist, politician, artist, etc.) did say the things that appear in their account, because the Blue Hoy confirms to us that this is the official account.
Every day I wake up crazy, but today?
Wow, I exaggerated.
Musk (Photo: Reuters)
But the free speech knight was less enthusiastic about the blue hue.
After purchasing Twitter, he decided to allow anyone to purchase a blue V at a cost of 8 dollars a month.
The result?
Impersonation of masses of users to companies and public figures.
For example, a user who bought the blue Hoy and impersonated the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, posted a false tweet that from today the company will stop selling insulin and simply provide it for free.
A few hours passed before the company itself had time to clarify that this was not the case, during the hours that passed the stock of the pharmaceutical giant crashed, losing 21 billion dollars of its value in one day.
In response, Eli Lilly canceled all advertisements it had purchased on the Twitter platform.
The pharmaceutical giant was joined by other companies that decided to cancel advertising on Twitter, such as Omnicom Media Group (an advertising company that represents giant corporations such as Apple and McDonald's).
This is on the grounds that advertising on Twitter has become dangerous: "The risk to our customers' brand has increased significantly to a level that most customers are not willing to accept."
This is a blow for Twitter, most of whose revenue comes from the sale of advertisements.
Eventually Musk, who was passionate about giving users the option to buy the Blue Hoy, folded.
Twitter announced the cancellation of the option and began to remove accounts that had already purchased V Blue.
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But freedom of expression can be abused not only by counterfeiters and imitators but also by parties seeking to spread radical and dangerous ideas.
Elon Musk supports freedom of expression even at the cost of giving a platform to extreme views.
That's why he allowed many accounts that were previously blocked due to neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic statements to return to tweeting on Twitter.
This policy led to a 23% increase in derogatory epithets tweeted in the month of November, compared to the months preceding it in 2022.
And the word Jew?
She tweeted more than 5,000 times an hour, according to data from the NCRI research institute.
One of these people, who recently returned to Twitter, is Kanye West.
Kanye West's mental deterioration and anti-Semitism have already been widely covered: he had time to praise Hitler and the Nazis, accuse the Jews of controlling the media and arrange a meeting between Holocaust denier and extreme right-winger Nick Fuentes and Doland Trump.
But one of West's "peak moments" came at the beginning of December when the latter posted on Twitter a picture of a swastika combined with a Star of David.
In response, Elon Musk chose to show that even for him freedom of expression has red lines.
He announced West's suspension from the Twitter platform and explained that his account: "is suspended for inciting violence."
In an era where social networks are shaping consciousness, humanity's ability to find the balance between freedom of expression and setting limits is critical to its future and its economic, social and cultural prosperity.
Inciting content?
Oh yea.
Musk and Kanye West (Photo: Reuters)
Attorney Reot Goldman (Photo: Sharon Yitzhak)
In the end, false content on the web is published 10 times faster than true words.
And toxic and inflammatory content is also very popular.
The key to combating the breached boundaries of free speech online is to set moral red lines, as in West's case.
But also to create a situation in which the economic interest of the social networks is to slightly limit the freedom of expression, as in the case of the Blue Hoi.
Once Twitter experienced losses in ad sales, this prompted it to backtrack and return the blue hue to a symbol used only by individuals and public companies.
Beyond that, awareness is extremely important.
It is worth remembering that when we use social networks, we are subject to unfair rules of the game that change according to the whims of those who control the networks.
They reserve the right to choose whether to abide by the laws they set or not.
Elon Musk made sure to remind us of that this week.
The author is the CEO of the Geomatrix Group. A member of the "Helsinki" committee at Blinson Hospital, and a member of the board of trustees of the Schneider Children's Hospital.
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