Elon Musk’s immoral, dangerous, failing experiment in free speech

One year ago last week, Elon Musk carried in the sink. The gesture was symbolic of his just-completed purchase of Twitter, now known as X, which upended the entire social media industry.

With the Israel-Hamas war now unfolding, we are now seeing that industry fail its first test since Musk began implementing his philosophy of free-speech absolutism. What has now become clear is that Musk’s vision of speech on X is one of the greatest dangers to democracy, especially leading into the 2024 elections.

As I testified before Congress earlier this year, I worked with a small trust and safety team at Twitter during the last election. We were one of the last defenses to American democracy leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 mob attack on Congress, in which rioters intended to prevent the certification of President Biden’s election victory. This led ultimately to our deplatforming former President Donald Trump.

Much like poll workers, social media trust and safety workers toil thanklessly and behind the scenes for years to protect the safety and integrity of our most vital democratic institutions. Rather than invest in that crucial work, Musk took a page out of Trump’s playbook, repeatedly and publicly attacking trust and safety workers. He unleashed the Twitter Files, which revealed the names, images, and contact information of former Twitter trust and safety employees.

I was on the receiving end of death threats following these disclosures and after being mocked by Musk; I know, from personal experience, that his actions have changed the environment for trust and safety workers, making them less safe.

Musk fired 80 percent of the company’s employees after taking over, and this included a dismantling of the trust and safety team. Musk then began rolling back the platform’s policies and reinstating accounts previously banned for hate speech and misinformation.

Last month, Musk announced he was eliminating the remaining trust and safety team and future roles for election integrity at the platform. This month, as war broke out, Musk began amplifying accounts known for spreading misinformation. His changes to the platform’s verification system have also allowed paid verified accounts to be responsible for 74 percent of the worst Israel-Hamas related misinformation. Despite this, X is currently pitching political advertisers to join the platform, reversing the company’s previous ban on political advertising before the 2020 election. 

Unfortunately, this danger goes beyond just one social media company, because what Musk does sets trends. Following Musk’s lead, other tech companies such as Meta, Amazon, and Google also instituted company-wide layoffs over the last year that have decimated their trust and safety teams. These companies continued in Musk’s footsteps by also scaling back their election-related policies, reinstating Trump’s account, and launching their own new paid verification systems.

In our current world, with talks of impending genocide in Gaza and a global war without end in the Middle East, this industry-wide rollback of policies and people led by Musk’s speech philosophies has meant that hate speech has surged. Misinformation has become omnipresent.

I recently warned of the implications that these changes could have for the safety and surveillance of marginalized communities. But Musk’s actions affect us all. His removal of the people and policies responsible for safeguarding democracy on X, and other companies following suit, has made our entire information ecosystem less safe.

The largest communications platforms are now vulnerable to manipulation and interference at a time when hostile nations are actively seeking to undermine democracy. This is even more concerning in the midst of a monumental global election season, with over 50 countries around the world having elections over the next year. We’ve already begun to see these elections take a turn toward far-right authoritarianism. This could sweep the globe, changing the face of our politics and affected all of our rights. 

Many people believe Musk is a genius with a Midas touch. They name Tesla’s ability to singlehandedly reinvigorate the electric vehicle market, SpaceX’s savvy in sending reusable rockets into space, and Starlink’s ability to bring satellite internet connections to the most remote locations. But free speech, the product of X that upholds democracy, is not a technology company or a physical thing. Speech is evolving, complicated, and sticky. It requires tradeoffs, flexibility, and tough decisions. It shouldn’t be dictated by an autocratic CEO with absolutist ideologies. 

At this moment, when we reflect on one year of Musk’s social media reign, we must reevaluate how we consume information and our complex relationships with social media platforms. It’s time to stop using X and participating in Musk’s immoral and dangerous failing free speech experiment. We must also make waves in developing better information ecosystems and sources of information to replace social media companies, like reinvesting in local news. Most importantly, we must make these changes quickly, because the future of our democracy depends on it. 

Anika Collier Navaroli, a former Twitter employee, is currently a senior fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University and a Public Voices Fellow on Technology in the Public Interest with The Oped Project.