Musk’s SpaceX could certainly seek Chinese customers, while his Boring Co.
There are incentives on offer beyond the electric-vehicle market. Regulators have hammered the country’s tech giants and effectively banned Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!īeijing has shown a willingness to punish billionaires who don’t comply with its wishes. China has also used automated and anonymous accounts to distribute the government’s messages, which prompted Twitter to remove more than 170,000 accounts in 2020 for « spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party. » Musk has pledged to « defeat the spam bots or die trying! » and sounds determined to keep taking on the fake accounts. « I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. »īots are another matter. « By ‘free speech’, I simply mean that which matches the law, » Musk wrote on Twitter. The billionaire hasn’t given a clear indication of how he would decide such matters.
Twitter must change such policy.Ĭhen Weihua, a journalist at the China Daily, appealed directly to Musk with the argument that such labels suppress free speech and contradict Musk’s stated principles. This is totally discriminatory and suppression of free speech. Also, when people want to like or RT my tweets, they are now reminded by Twitter that “this is state affiliated media”. « Whatever incremental changes he makes on the platform in the name of free speech risk being subsumed beneath the weight of a heavy Chinese hand controlling what Musk has rightly dubbed a global public square. »Įlon Musk should remove my label. « One of the fiercest tests of Musk’s avowed commitment to expanding free speech on Twitter will lie in whether he withstands pressure from Beijing to whitewash criticisms and challenges of China on the platform, » said Suzanne Nossel, CEO of non-profit advocacy group PEN America. Chinese media have called the practice « bullying » and already begun to lobby the billionaire to roll it back. The company in 2020 instituted labels for government officials and « state-affiliated media » for publications like Xinhua and Global Times, and readers are reminded of this government-backing any time they like or retweet stories. Tesla has also benefited from significant tax breaks in setting up his Shanghai Gigafactory - its first overseas plant - and been allowed to wholly own its local operations, a rarity for a US firm.Ī pressing issue is how Twitter handles China’s efforts to spread propaganda globally on the platform. The billionaire will certainly face pressure - implicit or explicit - to fine-tune Twitter’s policies to please Beijing.Īs the world’s biggest electric-vehicle market as well as a supplier of Tesla batteries, China is essential to the healthy growth of the centerpiece of Musk’s business empire. founder Jeff Bezos alluded to the potential conflicts in a tweet shortly after Musk’s deal, asking « Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square? »Īn obvious point is that China is tremendously important for Tesla, the key source of Musk’s wealth. Twitter is officially banned in China, but the country will still demand a lot of Musk’s attention. Representatives for Twitter and Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment. « It will depend on how he approaches it, if he can harness it for his free speech aims. »
« Asia has the potential to make or break the new Twitter, » said JJ Rose, a contributor to Australia’s nonpartisan Lowy Institute think tank. Once it’s a private concern controlled by the world’s richest man, Musk will personally shoulder responsibility for navigating that thicket - and the fallout if he fails. Twitter’s monetizable daily active users numbered 179 million internationally - dwarfing the 38 million in the US in 2021, according to its latest annual report.Īs a public company, Twitter has repeatedly emphasized it must abide by local regulations. The numbers alone suggest Musk’s biggest headaches lie abroad. and SpaceX billionaire makes good on promises to scrap censorship, he’ll encounter a plethora of perplexing regulations, wielded by sometimes authoritarian governments, pushed to the limits by a horde of first-time internet users. (Queue)įor all the furor about which way Elon Musk might tilt US political discourse after getting the keys to Twitter Inc, his biggest challenges may emerge across the Pacific.Īsia, home to more than half the world’s population, is Twitter’s biggest growth opportunity and arguably a far thornier challenge. Asia is Twitter’s biggest growth opportunity and arguably a far thornier challenge.