Google & Twitter: Threats to Internet Democracy?
In our world today, we like to think of big companies such as Google or Twitter as fair and objective, especially since their mission is, in theory, to let information flow impartially and to advocate for free speech. We use Google’s search engine and its auto-complete function every day, without thinking much about how certain search suggestions came about in the first place. When it comes to Twitter, we use it because it is supposedly a safe space where people can speak their mind freely and engage with everyone, from politicians and superstars, to close friends or complete strangers.
A Google search in 2011 using the terms “Black girls” lead Noble to find a many pornographic search results fetishizing black women, as you can see in the image below. However, when searching for “White girls”, no such results popped up. In her book, Noble (2018) suggests that big data and algorithms are NOT objective, and that the people who make decisions in these instances hold all types of values, most of which are harmful, such as racism, sexism, or false meritocracy ideals. Therefore, while some of the people who develop algorithms and run these companies openly promote discriminatory attitudes, how can we trust them to develop neutral and objective decision-making tools?
Take, for example, Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter. After firing most of Twitter’s worldwide employees, he fulfilled his promise to lift all life bans from controversial users such as Andrew Tate and Kanye West. Soon after, he released a tweet implying that people on Twitter now have access to complete - you guessed it - freedom of speech! What does free speech mean to him, you ask? Well, anything (including people being racist, sexist and outright cruel) BUT people who criticize him. Once people started changing their profile names to his and other politicians as a way to mock them, Musk quickly followed up the tweet, threatening to ban the accounts of people who impersonate others.
As a self-proclaimed advocate for freedom of speech (Chisholm, 2022), he still could not handle being made fun of. However, by lifting life bans, it seems like he can handle and even endorses Kanye’s anti-Semitic attitude. It is in situations like these that I agree with Noble’s statement about how such monopoly in the information sector is a threat to democracy (2018). Many people did not want Musk to own Twitter, but since money can buy everything, there was no room for democracy. Even though we do not want to engage in oppressive discourse, we find ourselves using platforms like Twitter, who now have no issue promoting harmful views online.
It is important to keep in mind that negative freedoms like freedom of speech do not equal freedom from consequences (Phillips & Milner, 2021). This is best explained by Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance, explained down below.
People should be able to have access to information and the right to express their opinions, as long as they do not hurt or infringe on others’ rights and freedoms. In retrospect, Google and Twitter reinforce oppressive social and economic relations through their algorithms and owners respectively.
References:
Chisholm, J. (2022, May 2). Grimes blames Twitter for ‘public mental health’ issues amid takeover by her ex-partner Elon Musk. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/grimes-twitter-mental-health-musk-b2069746.html
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York: New York University Press.
Phillips, W & Milner, R. M. (2021). You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our Polluted Media Landscape. Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
