Elon's world: Twitter and Free Speech
Understanding philosophical and epistemic attitudes behind today's debates
With his US$40+ billion takeover bid for Twitter, which has been accepted by the Twitter board, Elon Musk has poured fuel on the flames of ongoing debates about freedom of speech. Musk appears to want to take Twitter back to its roots as "the free speech wing of the free speech party" whereas existing management have, in response to government and various societal pressures, increasingly focused on moderating content to ensure it is a safe platform and free from misinformation.
In the context of the ongoing deluge of opinion pieces, podcasts and tweets about the takeover, it is important to remember the context and rationale why Western liberal societies have upheld freedom of speech as an important value. For it is an uncommon idea, and indeed rather weird, across both human history and societies across the world today.
Why should we allow people who are out to cause mischief or harm, completely uninformed or objectively wrong to say whatever they want in public without any real limits? Surely that is how we end up with chaos and the breakdown of societies?
Moreover, assigning significant value to freedom of speech, and other rights or freedoms, depends on significant philosophical commitments that are often unexamined.
We will survey four strands of argument that have been advanced in favour of freedom of speech - and consider the underlying philosophical commitments of each. These should shine some light on the debates and the respective worldviews of Elon Musk and those promoting active content moderation on Twitter (and elsewhere).
A human right
One core strand to thinking about freedom of speech is the idea that humans, understood as a collection of autonomous individuals, possess a range of important rights that governments and others cannot deprive them of. Freedom of speech, communication, opinion and expression are considered to be one of these important rights.
The original statement of this attitude was in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen that was adopted in 1789 during the French Revolution:
The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
Similar words and concepts are found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted through the UN in 1948 and numerous other similar statements.
This way of thinking around human rights has had significant rhetorical and legal power in many places and times. However, it offers no independent justification for freedom of speech as distinct to the broader package of rights and, notably, rights based justifications are largely absent from current debates.
Philosophically, the existence of human rights depends on a specific concept of human beings as individuals who are autonomous and all of equal value and who deserve certain privileges or rights by virtue of existing. This concept is far from universal and highly contested across different cultures and worldviews. The power of these arguments is often rhetorical or legal and tends to only justify freedom of speech for those who have already accepted a human rights framework.
A limit to government power
The First Amendment to the US Constitution, which was drafted at much the same time as the French Revolution, provides a different justification for the freedom of speech. Despite the fact that it is now considered one of the key clauses in the ‘Bill of Rights’, the language of the text is markedly different to that adopted by the French. It reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
As drafted, the First Amendment does not include the concept of ‘rights’ and is not primarily concerned with individuals. Instead, it exists to impose a clear limit on the power of government: Congress shall make no law respecting.... The freedom of speech is just one of a package of freedoms that were all aimed at the same goal.
Most of those who originally settled in the US were fleeing government or religious persecution in Europe. Moreover, the US ‘War of Independence’ was a reaction to what was perceived as a tyrannical British Government. Thus, concerns about government overreach were baked into the core identity of many American colonies, some of which felt like the US Constitution did not go far enough to limit the potential for tyrannical government. The First Amendment, and much of what is now known as the Bill of Rights, was a response to these concerns.
This approach, that defines freedom of speech, along with freedom of the press, religion and peaceful assembly, as explicit limits on the power of governments, was part of the broader movement towards tolerance across many parts of Europe. To simplify, as a way of gaining societal peace after the long wars of religion, governments began accepting there were parts of personal lives that they would not seek to govern or impose rules about - with religious beliefs at the top of this list.
The logic within this way of thinking is admirably simple. Authoritarian governments will almost always impose restrictions on the press, on which groups can gather where, on the opinions that can be expressed and will seek to control religious groups. Guaranteeing these freedoms, both legally and as cultural norms, is a direct challenge to, and limit on, the ability of governments to impose authoritarian rule.
Philosophically, this argument presumes a profound skepticism about strong governments and leaders. While it feels obvious to many, it is at odds with historical traditions such as Plato’s promotion of the Philosophers as Kings, various forms of religious states, and a reliance on the rule of enlightened technocracies as is promoted today in China and elsewhere.
Essential for democracy
A related, but different, justification for the freedom of speech is that it is a foundational principle for effective democratic governments. This appears to be central to Elon Musk’s concerns:
However, this argument is not self-evident. Freedom of speech isn’t essential to all forms of democracy, only our modern liberal conception of it. In the simplest form of democracy, where everything is decided by majority vote, there is no reason why the limits of what can and can’t be said are also voted on. Whatever the majority decides is all that matters.
A simple majoritarian approach to democracy has been understood to be fragile since the Ancient Greeks, as it can easily lead to authoritarian demagogues who command the support of a simple majority of citizens - to the great cost of everyone else. Our modern approaches to democracy have, in response to this, put in place many checks, balances and processes to minimise these risks. This includes limits on government power such as those, including freedom of speech, outlined above.
However, the importance of free speech to a functioning liberal democracy goes beyond limiting government power. The core strength of modern democratic systems is not their efficiency or ability to make rapid decisions. Instead, it is the promotion of longer term stability by ensuring governments have legitimacy with the public and poor or unpopular governments (and decisions) can be changed without people having to resort to violence.
Central to the democratic approach to legitimacy is a discussion based approach to making decisions, formally conducted within parliaments but informally in various forms of national debate. To gain the broadest legitimacy from the population, a wide range of opinions and views expressing what most (if not all) people think should be aired. If the views of parts of the population are not allowed into the debate, then those people are likely to feel disenfranchised and will view the government and decisions as less than legitimate.
While there are some views that a society may view as beyond the pale, stable and legitimate government within this democratic approach relies on a widely interpreted freedom of speech. This allows the vast majority of people to be able to, and feel comfortable with, expressing their views and feeding those into the broader decision making debates. Freedom of speech therefore becomes a foundation for long term stability of democracies.
Philosophically, this presumes a somewhat limited conception of the role of government, especially one which is more focused on balancing competing interests rather than delivering some clear and coherent program or vision of the Good. It also assumes that it is possible to have a largely neutral public square where competing ideas or visions can be equally understood and discussed. For Elon Musk, as Twitter is the de facto public square, it needs to allow significant freedom of speech.
To better reveal the truth
So far, we have ignored the most famous defence of the freedom of speech, namely JS Mill's utilitarian approach published in On Liberty in 1859. Mill's argument is remarkable in that it doesn't appeal to concepts of rights or the nature of government. Instead it is primarily epistemic. It is about how we can achieve knowledge or attain truth. To see this, we can pick an illustrative quote from the second chapter:
the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error.
There are two key parts to Mill's argument. The first is that by restricting the freedom of speech, we may end up preventing something true being communicated and so we lose out on the truth. The second is that, even if what is communicated is wrong, we will better understand what is true by the 'collision' or discussion.
Mill's reasoning in this case should be familiar to readers here, as much of it was reflected in the previous post on practical humility. For Mill, "if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility." In our words, if we are trying to prevent someone expressing an opinion, it is possible that opinion is one of those things which we turn out to be wrong about.
Notably, and preempting many discussions around free speech today, Mill’s more detailed arguments are utilitarian. He accepts that harms will arise from the widespread freedom of speech that he advocates, but that when added up across the whole of society, the benefits from free speech outweigh the harms.
Philosophically, Mill explicitly bases his position on an extended argument for human fallibility about truth, or what we have called epistemic humility. He also assigns a very high value to truth and the discovery of truth, whereas others might prefer the avoidance of harm, social stability or group cohesion.
Epistemic attitudes and freedom of speech
Mill relies on epistemic humility to support freedom of speech, and for good reason. If we have epistemic confidence or certainty, that is we are confident or certain that we know what is true, then the arguments for freedom of speech no longer hold as much weight. For if we are justified in being certain about our knowledge, then allowing differing views (which will be wrong) adds nothing to what we know and can only cause harm. For example, I wouldn’t allow a child to express and act on their view that putting their hand in the fire will only tickle.
This suggests that there is a correlation between our epistemic attitudes and our acceptance of free speech: the more confident we are in the correctness of our knowledge, the less tolerant we will be of free speech. If we have no idea whether we are right or not, or don’t think we can get it right, we are likely to be very comfortable with any and every view being expressed. On the other hand, if we are certain we are right, we are unlikely to be happy to allow others to express different views, except in limited circumstances.
A caveat here is that this correlation is not absolute as there are different motivations for accepting or restricting freedom of speech. One can have epistemic certainty and still allow free speech due to considerations around human rights or democratic legitimacy. Or one can believe knowledge isn’t possible but restrict free speech for reasons of social cohesion or freedom from harms.
Elon vs Twitter moderation
Much of the content moderation on Twitter and similar platforms has been focused on removing misinformation. As we have already seen, this presumes a significant epistemic confidence that those in the know have it right. On this way of thinking, allowing free speech on many issues is harmful to good government, even in democratic systems.
For if we are justifiably confident in our knowledge about certain topics, then allowing open debate on those topics can only introduce falsehoods. This increases the risks of poor quality decisions and undermines the effectiveness and trust in government over the long term. As opposed to Mill, allowing the free exchange of ideas is unlikely to increase our understanding of the truth, because it is presumed that we already have a good grasp on the truth.
The great risk with this approach, and this is factored in to traditional liberal skepticism of governments, is it all depends on you being justified about the correctness of your knowledge. If you have advocated censoring other points of view, restricting the freedom of speech on certain topics, and it turns out that you got it wrong, then your actions look clearly authoritarian.
This has occurred with a number of topics through the pandemic, most notably the lab leak theory for the origins of covid, and appears to be one of the motivations behind Elon Musk’s take-over of Twitter. He seems to believe that the restrictions on the freedom of speech have gone too far. These are both harming our collective pursuit of truth and undermining the legitimacy of democratic government.
Assuming that nothing unexpectedly derails the takeover, Elon Musk owning Twitter will lead to an interesting natural experiment between different social media platforms. He will run Twitter based on a different set of fundamental philosophical and epistemic attitudes to Facebook or Instagram. This may take time to achieve as existing employees and content moderators get their heads around the new approach, or leave.
So long as the people making moderation decisions are confident or certain that their knowledge is correct, they will see no compelling need to allow greater freedom. They are unlikely to accept traditional arguments for freedom of speech without clear arguments for an attitude of epistemic humility.
Perhaps then, Elon Musk’s first step after a successful takeover needs be compulsory philosophy classes for Twitter content moderators. We can recommend some good places to start!
I thought this was great too. I found the qualifier to the Declaration of the Rights of Man about men (presumably) being responsible for “such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law” very telling: it almost renders the right illusory since the legislature may define virtually anything as an abuse of freedom of speech. Ideally everyone would self-limit their speech to what has a reasonable basis and doesn’t undermine social cohesion, but that doesn’t seem always to be self-evident on Twitter, so the issue of freedom of speech “abuses” inevitably arises. Claire Lehmann has a good piece in The Australian today, pointing out that decorum moderation (as opposed to viewpoint moderation) may be necessary to allow free speech to thrive. It seems to me that urging or mandating reasonableness of opinion and promotion of social cohesion is not going to work in the virtual town square, and maybe the best outcome is that ridiculous inflammatory claims (of the superiority of certain races, say) get ignored or treated with derision and contempt (like flat-earthers) rather than performative outrage.
Thought this was terrific and deserves wide readership. One thought. Perhaps there is merit in exploring our individual responsibility to ensure what we say has a reasonable basis, and that it will not unreasonably undermine social cohesion. I wonder if this itself can be seen as an expression of healthy epistemic humility and that people speaking reasonably is something that is unwisely assumed in the discourse in freedom of speech.