METRONEWS
© New Zealand Broadcasting School 2024

by New Zealand Broadcasting School students

Elon Musk's Twitter may open up the conversation in New Zealand

Technology

Jordan Dunn
Untitled design v17
Twitter accepted Musk's $44 Billion USD takeover offer on April 25  SUPPLIED - edited

A philosophy expert is saying the platform's new owner is making fundamentally good changes, and we should be allowing more offensiveness.

On April 25, the Twitter board accepted a takeover offer by by Tesla and SpaceX owner, Elon Musk.  

Musk purchased 9.2% of the company’s shares for $70 billion NZD, at an offer of $86.15 NZD per share. 

He said Twitter had censored free speech, and needed to become politically neutral.

Philosophy lecturer at the University of Canterbury, Michael-John Turp, said free speech was a fundamental barrier in preventing tyranny in society. 

“It enables us to voice opposition to policies... it helps us exchange and facilitate ideas without worsening, without coming to violence.”

Turp said Elon was supporting a critical value that should seldom be undermined. 

"The bar should be pretty high for preventing someone to speak, but perhaps much lower for positively offering someone a platform."

speakers corner
This Speakers Corner in Albert Park, Auckland, is a relic that reminds visitors that New Zealand's democracy was built on the foundation of Free Speech SUPPLIED

He added letting people be offensive, and allowing them to learn from their mistakes, was an important part of free speech. 

"You should be allowed to make mistakes, the alternative is pretty terrible which is some central authority determining what you can and cannot say."

Turp felt New Zealand's speech laws were 'pretty good', but that some cancellations of speakers were too far, and topics should be open for debate. 

He mentioned the Australian philosopher Peter Singer, who was prevented from speaking in Auckland in 2020 due to his stance on disability. 

In response to the cancellation, SkyCity announced 'some of the themes promoted by this speaker do not reflect our values of diversity and inclusivity'.

Singer, in his 1979 publication Practical Ethics, said: "Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all".

Turp admitted certain groups, like Neo-Nazis, shouldn't have a platform. 

Peter Singer 2017 01
Australian Philosopher, Peter Singer, was cancelled from speaking at SkyCity in Auckland because of his stance on disability SUPPLIED

Sean Lyons runs the Online Safety Operations Centre at Netsafe. He said every year they were seeing more harmful content on screens. 

He said Twitter had a responsibility to uphold its standards.  

"I know that people can create harm by the words that they use, pictures they post, and videos they create; and if that platform knows it's causing harm then that content should be moderated out of existence." 

He said Netsafe does what it can to keep harmful content to a minimum.

"We don’t have the power to remove anything... what we do find ourselves doing very frequently is holding the platforms to account for their own terms and conditions."

Lyons doesn't expect any of these to change now Musk is the largest shareholder, but he said he would still keep an eye out. 

Although in a recent interview with Financial Times Musk said he would reverse Donald Trump's ban from the platform, saying the ban was a 'morally wrong' decision. 

"Banning Trump from Twitter didn't end Trump's voice, it will amplify it among the right."

In data released by GlobalStats, in the last 12 months 10.7% of New Zealanders used Twitter.  

In comparison, the top platform, Facebook, was used by 68.6% of Kiwis.  

"There can be a trade-off between allowing people to do things that aren’t very wise for themselves to preserve freedoms for everyone. "
Michael-John Turp - Senior philosophy lecturer at the University of Canterbury