Elon Musk Censors Thousands of Journalists on Twitter
Unannounced policy changes halt the flow of real time information passed between journalists amid the growing unrest in France.
On the morning of July 1st, many users found themselves unable to access any content on Twitter.
A tweet from Elon Musk explained that user's accounts would be temporarily limited to reading a set number of posts per day due to "data scraping & system manipulation."
Ironically, Musk gave his explanation to the situation in the form of a tweet, which affected users could not see.
Even more ironic, Musk was unable to view the responses to the situation he created after he read too many responses and locked himself out from access to much of the content on Twitter.
Technical terms like data scraping and system manipulation are broad and provide acceptable cover to enact far reaching policy. Without further explanation from Elon, the platform’s new rules make little technical sense in regard to solving the stated issue at hand.
The new policy is also bad for the content monetization model at Twitter by limiting what creators and viewers can see. Which in turn reduces the amount of traffic going through the site, directly lowering revenue through diminished ad views, and by reducing the amount of subscriptions sold by twitter.
Furthermore the changes are not in line with Elon Musk's public statements on the company being the "town square" or for someone who claims to be a "free speech absolutist," and, frankly, render the platform virtually unusable for many users.
Sheldon Chang on Mastodon gives an example of how the change didn’t help the problems that it aims to solve.
Fortunately, Sheldon posts to Mastodon where we can access his posts.
The temporary nature of the solution presented by Musk suggests that it needed to be instituted quickly in order to patch the system while a long term solution can be implemented down the line.
The self inflicted DDOS attack, adds further credibility to the idea that the change was implemented on short notice as it would suggest that the updates were not thoroughly tested before going live.
Logically an issue that would require a temporary patch must be troublesome enough for Musk to risk the company he recently spent 44 billion dollars to acquire in leu of working towards a long term solution.
And when the problem of data scraping and system manipulation has not presented itself an existential crisis to Musk or Twitter in the past, how could it require such a hastily implemented change in policy now?
Additionally, Musk has a history of involving Twitter users in policy decisions at the company before making them. Even going as far as abiding by a public poll asking if he should step down as the CEO of Twitter.
When the poll ended, voting for his removal, Musk agreed to step down.
But in the middle of a historic moment for France and the world, Musk broke the pattern of behavior that has lead his followers to believe in him by silencing and removing from conversation the most active participants of the site.
The new policies affected users who search for evolving information in real time, which requires the ability to go though a large number of conflicting posts and comments for material sources.
The changes by Twitter make it impossible to keep track of developing stories, effectively targeting and eliminating any journalism and preventing organic movements from taking place on Twitter.
Videos were being proliferated on Twitter showing escalating violence, the use of light machine guns, automatic rifles, shotguns, handguns, grenades, and IEDs by rioters in France. They show French citizens with their hands cut off, men in all black looting, and committing arson on some of Frances largest and most historic buildings.
And when information started appearing of French citizens rising up against the rioters their voices were muted by Twitter and the EU.
In response to the destruction taking over France, citizens have gathered to protect their country.
Some groups have begun opposing each other in the street, often leading to violent clashes.
We are compiling video of the events in France here.
France has responded to the spread of information by imposing temporary bans on internet usage.
The following day Macron mimicked the statements made in the press release stating that the French Government has contacted several social media companies and will be removing sensitive content that aids in the spread of the violent protest in France.
This comes as one of many recent restrictions passed by the EU and French Government which aim to control misinformation by limiting people’s interaction with the internet and by policing the content on companies online.
French President Emmanuel Macron believes the internet must be regulated and has given French judges jurisdiction to order the removal of “false information” from social media companies online, potentially affecting the flow of information outside of France’s jurisdiction.
Twitter has been the target of those laws and Musk had previously advocated for free speech by pulling out of a voluntary code of ethics aimed at removing disinformation from the web.
In response to Twitter’s departure, The EU Commissioner told Musk he could “run but not hide,” and that “fighting disinformation will be a legal obligation under DSA as of August 25 [2023].” The DSA became enforceable one month prior to the events in France and the change in Twitter policy.
A few short weeks after pulling out of the agreement, Musk agreed to “follow the law” in response to the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). Making it possible for the EU to request Twitter to censor content posted on the site by it’s users.
On June 16th, one week before the information blackout caused by the change in policy at Twitter, Musk met with French President Macron to discuss the control of misinformation online, Elon’s potential future business endeavors in France, and the multi billionaire’s future investments in France.
The model of censorship put in place by the EU under the regulatory framework of the DSA is seeing it’s first major use case by squashing information coming out of France during the riots of late June and early July.
Twitter’s temporary policy change comes at the same time content removal requests from the EU and France are issued regarding the riots.
Musk has already agreed to following the EU’s DSA law and the recent policy changes implemented under Musk at Twitter amount to little more than targeted censorship of content under the guise of a technical solution to issues in cyber security.
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