MSNBC Guest Raises Alarm Over Musk’s ‘First Amendment’ Approach to Twitter: ‘Weaponization of Human Nature’
The possible lack of content moderation on Twitter under new owner Elon Musk would actually not be beneficial to free speech, PEN America CEO and author Suzanne Nossel claimed Friday on MSNBC.
Joining Ali Velshi to discuss Musk’s recent takeover of the social media platform, Nossel argued Musk potentially rolling back safeguards and content moderation policies could lead to the “weaponization of human nature.”
Velshi began by quoting Nossel’s LA Times op-ed this week, in which she argued that easing restrictions on free speech could threaten it, a theme she echoed in her remarks to Velshi.
According to Nossel:
When it comes to a social media platform that, as Elon says, is trying to create an environment for public discourse, a place where people of different ideological persuasions can come together and can reason, in order to do that, you need to create some parameters. We’ve learned that. Speech in Twitter is not the same as a town square. It’s algorithmically driven. We’ve seen that falsehoods travel faster than than the truth on Twitter, that polarization can be stoked, that it’s a weaponization of human nature. You know and that can be for good or for ill. We can celebrate something and we can go down a very dark path if that’s where our nature draws us to.
Algorithms, Nossel argued, “fuel and supercharge” the spread of disinformation on platforms like Twitter. According to the activist, the approach to protecting free speech from the government and Twitter are two completely separate things, with protection from the government requiring more freedom.
“If Donald Trump had had the power to punish and throw journalists in jail, I think there’s every reason to believe he would have used it,” she said about defending free speech from a punitive government.
After his Twitter deal went through, Musk announced the creation of a “content moderation panel” this week and said no decisions on account reinstatements will be made until the council convenes. Musk previously stated he would be open to letting former President Donald Trump back on the platform.
“I don’t think the answer is a First Amendment approach,” Nossel said of Musk leading Twitter.
Watch above via MSNBC
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