Report says Twitter okayed 83% of govt requests to restrict content; Musk reacts angrily [details]

Under Elon Musk, Twitter authorized a staggering 83 per cent of authorities requests to both restrict or block content material globally, together with in India and Turkey, the media reported.

Since Musk’s takeover in October 2022, the micro-blogging platform acquired 971 requests from governments (in contrast to solely 338 within the six-month interval from October 2021 to April 2022), in accordance to a report in El Pais, a Spanish-language every day newspaper.

“The firm absolutely acceded to 808 of them and partially acceded to 154. In the 12 months prior to Musk taking management, Twitter agreed to 50 per cent of such requests, consistent with the compliance price indicated within the firm’s final transparency report (none have been revealed since October 2022),” the report famous.

Following Musk’stakeover, that determine has risen to 83 per cent, in accordance to knowledge by expertise info portal ‘Rest of World’.

When Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias shared the report on Twitter on Monday, with the caption “I’m a free speech absolutist”, an offended Musk reacted: “You’re such a numbskull. Please level out the place we had an precise selection and we’ll reverse it.”

The columnist responded: “Look, I’m not the one who purchased Twitter amidst a blaze of proclamations about free speech rules. Obviously you are inside your rights to run what you are promoting nevertheless you need.”

In April, Muskstated that by ‘free speech,’ he merely implies that which matches the regulation.

“I’m in opposition to censorship that goes far past the regulation. If folks need much less free speech, they may ask the federal government to move legal guidelines to that impact. Therefore, going past the regulation is opposite to the desire of the folks,” Musk posted on Twitter.

The outgoing Twitter CEO final month instructed the BBC that he would adjust to the regulation of the land in India somewhat than ship his folks to jail because the nation has “strict social media legal guidelines”.

In a Twitter Spaces interview, he was requested concerning the micro-blogging platform taking down hyperlinks associated to the BBC’s controversial documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“India has very strict social media legal guidelines. If it is a selection between complying with the legal guidelines or going to jail, I’d somewhat adjust to legal guidelines than have any of my folks go to jail,” he stated.

“We can’t transcend the regulation of the nation,” Musk burdened.

Musk claimed that there’s much less misinformation and hate speech on the micro-blogging platform since he took over.

(With inputs from IANS)