Opinion | Elon Musk's Twitter chaos is bad for the open internet - The Washington Post

Ahead of acquiring Twitter, Mr. Musk spoke astir a “platform for escaped code astir the globe” that would let astir each ineligible content, nary substance however abhorrent. He has retreated from that stance since past — benignant of. Mr. Musk said that advertisers won’t person to interest astir putting their brands’ bully sanction successful jeopardy, vowing that the tract won’t go a “free-for-all hellscape.” Yet he shared successful a (subsequently deleted) reply to Hillary Clinton an nonfiction stuffed with baseless rumors astir the battle of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband, and helium decreed successful a reply to different tweet that “anyone suspended for insignificant & dubious reasons volition beryllium freed from Twitter jail.”

Add to each this Mr. Musk’s bevy of proposals for overhauling however Twitter decides what contented to investigate, statement oregon region from the site: an oversight committee to reappraisal takedown decisions; an open-sourced algorithm to benignant done users’ posts; options for users to power however overmuch they privation Twitter to censor the contented they see. These aren’t needfully atrocious ideas, but they besides look to beryllium disjointed and not afloat thought-out. Mr. Musk seems to beryllium discovering successful existent clip the trade-offs among speech, information and moneymaking inherent to societal media — trade-offs that took manufacture veterans a decennary to admit but that helium is confronting lone now.

Meanwhile, governments astir the world that are dissatisfied with societal media companies, specified arsenic successful Canada, Britain and India, are instituting regulations connected the types of code that platforms tin and can’t allow. In the United States, the Supreme Court is poised to perceive aggregate cases involving Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the alleged 26 words that created the internet, which granted sites immunity for astir of the contented users station connected them. Twitter is simply a enactment successful 1 of these cases, which asks whether platforms tin beryllium held accountable erstwhile violent propaganda appears connected their sites. Another lawsuit asks the aforesaid question but with a absorption connected the algorithms that societal media sites usage to urge contented to users. Then determination are ineligible challenges to laws successful Texas and Florida that would prevent platforms from removing immoderate posts.

The results of thing but the astir cautiously considered reforms volition beryllium monolithic unintended consequences, possibly causing litigation-wary sites to commencement moderating contented adjacent much aggressively than they already do, oregon possibly causing them to mean not astatine all, due to the fact that the enactment of moderation exposes them to liability. Many of the proposals overseas transportation akin risks of important unwanted broadside effects.

In the look of these threats, Mr. Musk should combat for the unfastened internet, continuing Twitter’s ineligible conflict astatine the Supreme Court and dissuading regulators from cracking down. He should bash little responding to random tweets oregon investigating idiosyncratic grievances helium finds personally compelling, and much devising of thoughtful rules.

Social media platforms volition person a harder clip persuading governments to follow nuanced regulations that sphere their quality to negociate their ain properties responsibly if they aren’t trying to beryllium responsible. Section 230 built an net that allows platforms to experiment, to germinate and to larn — which is precisely what Mr. Musk should beryllium doing close now, alternatively of playing games.