Leave Twitter: this is what certain users frightened by the announced takeover of Elon Musk claim to want to do. But that’s easier said than done since this influential social network offers them an incomparable global audience.
Leaving Twitter, really?
Since the announcement of the upcoming takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk on Monday, many users have sworn that they will leave the social network. In question, the will displayed by the whimsical billionaire to free speech there, in the name of freedom of expression.
“It will become an even more anarchic, hateful, xenophobic, bigoted and misogynistic space”tweeted actress and feminist activist Jameela Jamil (one million subscribers).
These leaving promises are illustrated by hashtags (keywords) that went viral on Tuesday, such as #LeaveTwitter (#QuitterTwitter).
But many other users are skeptical.
« People who say they quit Twitter in India because Elon Musk bought it, are they the same people who said they would quit India if Narendra Modi became Prime Minister? It happened twice. And they NEVER did! »tweeted Indian writer and columnist Shefali Vaidya (665,000 subscribers).
In mid-April, the French journalist Nicolas Hénin (52,000 subscribers) had promised that he would leave the platform if Musk bought it.
« I haven’t made a firm decision yet »he nuanced Tuesday with AFP, explaining that he was hampered by two things: « On the one hand the fact of giving the impression of deserting, and on the other hand the absence of an alternative ».
Where to go ?
In fact, no platform today can compete with that of the blue bird.
« What makes Twitter is the community, it’s its 436 million users », told AFP Leïla Mörch, coordinator of the Content Policy and Society Lab research project at Stanford University.
In terms of popularity, it is the discussion application Discord (300 million accounts) that comes closest to Twitter. It brings together online communities but, unlike Twitter, is not an open platform: each space requires an invitation.
Launched in 2016, Mastodon is an ad-free, open source Twitter clone, but its main server is much smaller with just 670,000 subscribers.
Other platforms like Gettr, Parler or The Truth Social also copied the original. Prized or even founded by relatives of former United States President Donald Trump, banned from Twitter in January 2021 for incitement to violence, these alternatives are considered « right-wing Twitter ».
American conservatives have also applauded Musk’s plans for Twitter.
Finally, the social network Tumblr, created in 2007 but fallen into disuse, could also become a refuge for those disappointed with Twitter.
Who’s on Twitter?
« Twitter attracts the media world, a group of journalists and people, the world of political and economic decision-makers »as well as a « layer of influencers », explains to AFP Dominique Boullier, university professor in sociology at Sciences Po Paris.
These « opinion relays » represent only a minority of users, according to the specialist, but they are the ones who « drain the general public » and « generate virality ».
Musk’s goal, continues Mr. Boullier, is to make Twitter « a mass medium » by recovering « an audience fond of shocking, contradictory and alternative news » less present since the banishment of Donald Trump.
What freedom of expression?
For Leïla Mörch, Musk’s contested takeover of Twitter has at least one merit: « People are realizing that moderation is politics, and that it raises questions for society. »
« Whatever the new shareholding, Twitter will now have to fully adapt to European rules »European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, warned on Tuesday.
An allusion to the new European regulation on digital services, the Digital Services Act (DSA), which will force platforms to better fight against illegal content.
But, for Leïla Mörch, the question is broader: « Moderation gives tools, but it’s a debate on freedom of expression that we must have: what do we want to see online or not? ».
The researcher makes the analogy with the way in which sexual assault has been legally defined in real life: “It was years of research, of setting up rules and, today, people agree. But we didn’t do that online, say, ‘What is freedom of expression? What’s the limit?' ».
#Leave #Twitter #Easier
