LOUD DEMOCRACY

by: Michael Valbjorn

The allegations

X, the social media giant formerly known as Twitter, has since the Elon Musk takeover been the epicenter in a storm of accusations, of being an assembly point for a mix of political fanatics and Russian internet hate trolls. The allegations pointed at the platform suggest, that the unhinged level of false information on the platform, is placing the app at the heart, of a growing number of organized misinformation campaigns targeting citizens, while supporters of the platform is calling it one of the last waterholes for free speech and expression.

The Examples

The examples i bring into play may shock you, and they are only the very top of the iceberg. What you are about to see here, is what meets users every single day on X. I will bring forward the examples and provide whatever perspective i can.

Example

The next example is that of a user on X, whom we have anonymised here. Political ideology and smear campaigns are commonplace on X, and truth rarely has anything to do with it, although here, it actually relates to a moment at a press conference, however taken out of context. This specific post has been viewed 1,5 million times.

Example

And yet another great example of a story, where political smear is the objective. I have not been able to verify the story, although it is true that the specific website carries the article.

Right wing fanatics are often brutal, and more often than not untruthfull in the stories they post. Here it is an anti transgender story, that all school shooting have been comitted by trans people.

I have since been able to debunk this story, and on this specific post, other users also provided info that it is indeed untrue.

A boxer is a victim of a coordinated hate campaign

X is a place where you can write just about anything, and there is next to no moderation going on at all. This means that lies on X goes virtually unchecked and get to spread like wildfires, as it was the case with Olympic Boxer Imane Khelif, and the story of her actually being a man. This lie even made it into the mainstream news feeds, and was later debunked. The lies have had a huge personal impact on the young boxer and press conferences of her crying while speaking about the ordeal has aired repeatedly.

In this specific post, it was even a Danish right wing politician posting the incorrect information on X.

In the post, he is in a sarcastic way congratulating the olympic comission, for letting men beat up on women.

My opinion

There is no doubt that posting a lie about someone else, can have huge consequences for the person lied about. This is why, an app or a social media company has to closely moderate and surveil the postings on the pages and sites under their control. The consequences for Imane Khelif were absolutely enormous!

But how about democracy itself? Can lies, deep AI fakes and hatespeech become so explosive and so vast, that democracy itself is threatened? My answer is Yes! and it shows in the very example of X.

X constitutes in my view, what the misuse of free speech can amount to, when it is used in organized and coordinated misinformation campaigns, it is allowed on this platform to run rampant with almost no moderation and no accountability. It is in this regard not the platform itself which constitutes a problem for democracy, but rather the way it is run and moderated by the very people providing the service. It is not my view that certain platforms should be outlawed or closed down, as the principle of free speech is far too important to be comprimised or infringed. It is however my view, that it should be the responsibility placed with any company delivering a service of this kind, to moderate and even remove content, independently found to be untruthful or hateful.

It is also my view, that the influence of a person behind a company such as X, if doing the bidding primarily of a single candidate during an election, constitutes a clear problem in terms of the one human one vote principle, as he absolutely carries undue and virtually unchallenged influence on to other voters. It is if left uncontrolled and unregulated, left up to the best and most influential algorithm, to decide who becomes the president or PM elect.