Elon Musk has bought Twitter by paying far more for it than its actual commercial worth. From his interviews/tweets, it seems that Elon wants to buy Twitter for solving some of the fundamental problems of social media, especially when it comes to freedom of speech. Elon will no doubt like to call the acquisition as "social work", in the same sense as Telsa or SpaceX can be called as social work (and I partially agreed with that definition). But does he really understand the actual conundrum between “freedom of speech” and “dangers of social media”? Does he have a solution for this? I am not sure till now.
Elon has been running Twitter for some time now and he has still not articulated the problem clearly. Only once he seems to have been on the right track when he said the following about misinformation on Twitter – “Freedom of Speech but not Freedom of Reach”. However, apart from that one instance, he seems to not understand the problem and neither the solution (at least as per the public information available). However, I am still very hopeful. Maybe he will prove me wrong.
Let’s first try to define the problem. The problem is not just with Twitter but most social media platforms. Here I will not be talking about the mental health issues or lack of attentiveness or poor social skills caused by social media platforms. Those are minor problems. Similarly, bots or fake accounts on social media are a minor problem or rather a “business valuation” problem. Let’s focus only on the bigger problems (solving which will be considered “social work”). I believe that many social media platforms pose an existential challenge to the entire human civilization and especially to the democratic systems around the world.
As users spend more and more time on social media, these platforms become the primary source of information and news for the users. The information which each user gets is highly sensitive to individual biases (confirmation bias) and prejudice. It is curated “only to enhance engagement” on the platform. The difference between fact and fiction disappears in the post-truth world and people increasingly start living in one of the many alternate realities. This results in many negative consequences in the real world ranging from online harassments to loss of lives due to vaccine misinformation.
To complicate matters further, when social media companies try to fight against fake news and deliberate misinformation through de-platforming or other penalties, the actions appear extremely arbitrary, one-sided, and completely against the freedom of speech. This is the conundrum in which most social media platforms find themselves. On the surface, it appears that there is no solution to this problem.
Moreover, there is no grand conspiracy here. Platforms such as Twitter were not originally designed to spread hatred, subvert democracy, or encourage divisions or enmity. These are all unintended consequences of their algorithms and revenue models, which became apparent later. Similarly, I don’t believe that the people running social media companies have a particular political agenda while de-platforming individuals or discouraging certain ideas on their platform. Despite their genuine sincere and honest efforts, the result remains highly arbitrary, completely unsatisfactory, and highly dangerous.
Let’s go slightly deeper into the problem.
Freedom of Speech
The basic hypothesis behind the concept of Freedom of Speech is that an overwhelming majority of people will choose the option which is logical / socially beneficial when exposed to all the various opinions and facts in a free market of ideas. More importantly, the most harmful options will be quickly and automatically weeded out. The role of any regulation must be as less as possible and limited only to maintaining law and order.
There have been multiple sources of propaganda earlier, but Social Media platforms are different in both their reach and influence (impact). Social Media platforms have too large an impact on the thought process and decision-making of a majority of the population, as they become the primary source of information and news. This is a growing problem and will soon start invalidating the basic hypothesis behind the Freedom of Speech. We are not there yet but we are headed toward that. The resulting consequences (if nothing changes) are going to be devastating.
Various degrees of Truth
There are undoubtedly several nuances when it comes to defining what is a fact (a verifiable truth irrespective of one’s subjective opinions), what is an informed subjective opinion, and what is a deliberate misinformation (the creator is aware that he/she is telling a lie). There is a spectrum of various degrees of truth and not clearly defined categories.
However, if you ask a random person whether any statement is a ‘fact’ or an ‘opinion’, and he/she will generally give the right answer if you present both sides of the argument to him/her. The problem is no human being will want to put in the mental effort to hear both sides of arguments on every issue or verify every statement by doing independent research.
While machines have become very good at identifying patterns in images, natural language processing, and several other areas, they are currently poor at identifying whether something is a fact or misinformation. Since there are not many commercial applications for this problem, not enough AI models have been built for this.
Capitalism
Capitalism runs our modern economic world. The basic hypothesis behind capitalism is that in a free market, it is morally and economically good for society if private enterprises only focus on profits above everything else while remaining strictly inside the regulatory framework.
Due to the principle of Freedom of Speech, the regulatory frameworks/rules for Social Media Platforms in the USA, are currently extremely weak (only limited to maintaining law and order). For social media platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., their bottom line is directly driven by user engagement. It appears slightly unfair to expect social media platforms to worry about the damage they are causing to society (and do self-regulation) when the same expectation is not there from any other sector.
Elon’s decision to make Twitter into a private company (from a public company) is most likely due to his desire to be free from capitalism’s golden rule to only focus on Profits. But in a capitalist world, non-profit organizations find it difficult to survive even if the owner does not want anything for himself/herself.
Monetizing Strategy
To achieve network effect, most social media networks are free for users. To make money they are dependent on advertisers. Advertisers will give money based on the reach and user engagement that they get. Hence the extreme competition for user attention from which no social media company is immune till now. While it may appear that some social media companies (such as Twitter) are running virtual monopolies due to their network effect, that is not true at all. The corporate competition for user attention is immense and every 7-8 years a new wave of social media platform disruption sweeps the globe.
Elon wants to charge $8 per month for blue tick verification. This is one way Elon wants to make money directly from users without being dependent on advertisers. Will it lead to some financial independence and sustainability for Twitter? Maybe. However, will this approach be enough to get Twitter out of the global race for higher user engagement? Is the moat around Twitter deep enough? My guess is No.
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Now that we have discussed in detail about the problem, let’s start discussing my solution. Yes, I believe a partial solution exists for this (else there is no point writing this blog !!).
Let’s start with the simplest principles -
Separation of Power
Social Media Platforms should not have any power to block any post or any individual on their platform. Each country must set up its own institution (quasi-judicial body) to flag a post or user to be banned (temporality or permanently) and their recommendation must be binding on the Social Media Platforms. In the absence of such a body, a separate non-profit entity must be created to serve this purpose.
Moral Duty towards Truth
There is a moral duty of all social media platforms to promote Truth in the world. This needs to be acknowledged as a principle of Human Society. Only after we accept this societal principle can we begin the discussions on how to implement/regulate this.
Regulation on Algorithm (Personalization and Reach)
Any platform which has the ability to change the thoughts and beliefs of millions of people needs regulation to ensure that the Platform fulfills its moral duty toward the Truth. Social Media Platforms are digital public goods and need to be regulated. However, something unique is required for Social Media platforms. What is required is regulation on algorithms that control user personalization and reach (both organic and paid).
Public list of “True Facts”
Everything that a Social Media Platform considers as “True Facts” must be publicly available in Human Readable format. (E.g. Albert Einstein died on April 18, 1955). Each item has to be very specific with no generic statements. This is a very difficult engineering problem – both in scope and complexity. Essentially the list must be simultaneous “Human Readable” as well as “input to the algorithm which controls the reach of any post/person”.
There should be a way to get public feedback on each item in the list and people should be free to bring evidence both for or against any item. The public should be able to give requests to add missing “True Fact” in the public list (similar to the Wikipedia model)
Public list of “False Facts”
“True Fact” list alone is not sufficient to contain misinformation. Each social media platform must have a public list of “False Facts” (as per their definition) that are present on their platform. Again, this must be “Human Readable” as well as “input to the algorithm which controls the reach of any post/person”. The platform must ensure that the organic reach of “False Facts” is zero.
There needs to be a way for the public to debate about items in this list as well as add new items to this list. Contrary to popular belief, original “False Facts” (present on social media platforms) are not very prolific. A limited number of False Facts keep getting used in multiple different various ways and different subjective opinions.
The rate at which the “True Facts” list and “False Facts” list are updated needs to be significantly more than the rate of creation of misinformation.
More importantly, once false information is identified by the platform, it must be very efficient in preventing the same misinformation to spread again in the future.
Transparent communication about Reach
Users have a fundamental right to know if their reach (or the reach of their posts) has been restricted and the reason for the same. The reason should only be limited to – “Public list of True Facts” or “Public list of False Facts”. Any other reason must be out of the scope of the Social Media Platform company and in the scope of the quasi-judicial body (institution) mentioned above.
Restricting Manual Discretion
Ideally, there should be zero (or minimum) manual discretion or decision-making when it comes to restricting the reach of any post/user. This is because manual discretion will always lead to arbitrary and unsatisfactory priority orders and outcomes (with everyone questioning the motives). As an industry, social media platforms must self-regulate and remove manual discretion. Decisions by machines are more socially palatable than decisions by human beings.
Conclusion
Without commonly agreed rules, social media platforms will take any decision against their goal of higher user engagement, only when the chaos they cause has come too close to their homes. I am of course referring to Trump’s false claim regarding 2020 election rigging. The small possibility of a non-peaceful transfer of power in USA, scared all the social media platforms into doing random arbitrary actions which raised more questions than answers. The current situation is non-sustainable.
The solution I am proposing is to separate the entity taking decisions on punitive actions (blocking posts/users), establish moral duty towards truth as a basic principle, create a public list of True and False Facts and regulate the algorithms controlling content personalization and reach.
Will Elon take Twitter in the right direction? I am keeping my fingers crossed.
