We need to talk about Twitter again. And the war in Ukraine. And the possible role of Elon Musk who for a few weeks has been the new reference shareholder of the social network and member of the board of directors. In short, Twitter has made it known that it has decided to limit the visibility of accounts linked to the Russian government. There are about 300 official profiles, including two of Vladimir Putin (one in English, 1.7 million followers; and one in Russian, 3.6 million followers).
A middle ground, please, between Twitter and “War and Peace”
by Riccardo Luna
They are not blocked, they are less visible: that is, they can continue to post, and for example to argue that in Bucha there was no massacre of civilians, but they are less visible, Twitter will no longer show them in the timeline and in the search. In practice, if you look for Putin today on Twitter, you will only find dozens of profiles that parody the Russian president (to find Putin’s Twitter profile you need to go to Google). Twitter claims it did so not because those profiles are making false claims about an ongoing military assault; but because Russia limited free access to the Internet during a conflict ”. In fact, as we know, for some weeks in Russia many Western web services have been inaccessible.
The future of Twitter and Musk’s worrying rise
by Riccardo Luna
But something is wrong: we Westerners have also limited access to some Russian news sites because they peddle Kremlin propaganda. And then: sixteen months ago Twitter, led by founder Jack Dorsey, made the sensational decision to expel outgoing US President Trump for life because he had used tweets to instigate the assault of a handful of geeks in the American Congress. . And now Twitter, which is in fact led by Elon Musk, in the face of the brutality of what is happening in Ukraine, limits itself to “reducing the visibility” of Putin’s propaganda. If these are Twitter and Musk’s new criteria for freedom of expression, Trump’s profile should be readmitted immediately. Indeed, one wonders why Trump was expelled and Putin only circumscribed. Perhaps because Trump was now an outgoing president.