When Elon Musk started his project to buy Twitter, he used as a promise that he would care about increasing freedom of expression on the social network by reducing the censorship established on the social network. However, since the tycoon achieved his goal of owning the platform, he has dramatically increased the number of requests from governments to delete content or reveal user information, and Twitter has complied with these requests.
Data table comparing the number of government requests to remove content from Twitter. Source: Rest of the World.
During Elon Musk’s period as CEO of Twitter, there have been no transparency reports that allow knowing the figures of publications eliminated by the platform in general terms. But, in terms of government requests, the platform is forced to automatically export this information to the Lumen database, in which each request and the response they give from the social network are recorded. The Rest of The World site categorized each request received on Twitter into three time frames, with the latest being between October 27, 2022, and April 26, 2023. The site discovered that in the six months that Elon Musk has been in charge of the platform, they have received 971 court and government orders, almost double the number of the previous six months, and, ironically, they have accepted petitions for more than 800 cases.
Comparison of demands fulfilled by Twitter. Since Musk has been in charge, censorship has increased. Source: Rest of the World.
Since Elon Musk has taken the lead at Twitter, government requests to remove content or leak user identities have risen sharply, almost doubling. Also, if that wasn’t enough, Of the 971 cases, they have complied with 808 government demands, accepting another 154 partially while only nine requests were denied or are not specified.. This information contrasts with information from previous years, in which Twitter refused to hand over confidential information about its users or did not fully comply with the judicial requests, something that is demonstrated in figures because, for example, of 550 requests that reached Musk the previous semester, only 280 were effectively complied with.
The Lumen database records the requests, the dates received, the country of origin, and the response from Twitter, and as you can see, almost all of them have been fulfilled.
Information that has been provided to Lumen demonstrates a contradiction with Elon Musk’s proposal to buy Twitter, since, instead of increasing freedom of expression, censorship within the platform by governments has increased, particularly from countries like India or Turkey, characterized by restrictive attitudes, and Germany, a country that has laws against hate speech. For his part, Since April 15, reports have mysteriously stopped being sent to Lumenin addition to the fact that, from Twitter, they have refused to give statements on the subject.
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