Two questions raised by Elon Musk's pro-Trump Twitter censorship

Conservatives were rightly outraged when social media platforms like Twitter removed links to a New York post The story runs weeks before the 2020 election and details embarrassing information contained on Hunter Biden's laptop. Twitter executives later admitted it was a mistake, an overreaction to the platform's handling of tweets that referenced 2016 Democratic National Committee documents hacked by the Russian government.

But if the removal of the Hunter Biden content was problematic because of its potential impact on the 2020 election, then how should we think that Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter), is using his platform to promote Donald Trump's 2024 candidacy via at to support tirelessly? Is misleading and inflammatory election content being pushed into the feeds of millions of users every day?

A new New York Times deep dive last week described Musk as “the richest man in the world who has participated in the US election in a way unprecedented in modern history.” While Musk railed against censorship of Hunter Biden on social media, the Times claims links to the material were circulating on the platform, according to two people with knowledge of the events. “X ultimately blocked links to the material and suspended the reporter’s account.” (Musk did not respond to a request for comment on the Times’ reporting.)

Meanwhile, what to make of Musk's recent post, which states: “Very few Americans know that if Trump is NOT elected, this will be the last election.” Far from being a threat to democracy, it is the only way , to save them!” Musk went on to make a completely baseless claim that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are planning to turn millions of non-citizens in the US into voters who will inevitably vote for the Democrats.

Add to that Musk's appropriation of the @america moniker for his super PAC, the millions of dollars he pledged to a pro-Trump super PAC, and his personal appearances on the Trump campaign. Plus his efforts to collect voter registration information for his super PAC by offering $47 for each referral that results in a petition signature. (The petition promises support for the First and Second Amendments.)

Musk's transformation from Twitter to And what should social media companies do about election-related disinformation?

First, on the question of platform neutrality: The best way to think about Musk's actions is to remember the early 20th century journalist AJ Favoriten: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” Magazines like The Nation or television networks like Fox News have ideological biases; The same applies to social media platforms. Whoever runs the platforms can curate the content and share ideological messages. And just as you can cancel your subscription to a magazine or change the channel, you can unsubscribe from X or stop advertising on it – a trend that has been accelerated by Musk's highly partisan approach.

Back when Twitter and Facebook ousted Donald Trump from the platform after he failed to immediately and forcefully condemn the violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Florida and Texas each passed laws that would restrict major social media companies obliged to disseminate content from politicians, even if it was false or inflammatory.

I, along with other professors, wrote a letter to the Supreme Court when these laws were challenged on First Amendment grounds, arguing that social media platforms have the same right to curate content as newspapers. In June, the Supreme Court agreed, declaring those parts of Florida and Texas laws unconstitutional. I stand by this principle, even though X's supposed liberal bias has shifted toward a conservative direction under Musk and Musk has regularly spread election disinformation. Government control of the content of political speech creates more dangers than it solves.

But when it comes to election disinformation, Musk has arguably become the biggest culprit, regularly sharing election information in posts that are forwarded to millions of users every day. It's kind of an interesting natural experiment.

In 2020, Twitter had a trust and safety team that actively monitored election disinformation and flagged some tweets as containing false or controversial content. (This labeling may have backfired and reinforced some people's belief in the false posts.) In this election

What we don't know is whether this new tranche of election misinformation will influence many voters. We need studies to find out whether people are more likely to be misled now than they used to be, when there was more content moderation. One optimistic possibility is that the zone has been so inundated with false and misleading information that voters have largely been inoculated by it. Those who tend to believe the false information could be people who were already predisposed to believe it. If you believe Democrats routinely cheat in elections, these posts will simply confirm your beliefs. If you don't, you will downvote the posts as nonsense and possibly leave X and move on to somewhere with more reliable information.