Twitter’s Security Lapses, Censorship Means Platform Needs Musk Far More Than Musk Needs Twitter: Experts

Tesla CEO Elon Musk looks up as he addresses guests at the Offshore Northern Seas 2022 (ONS) meeting in Stavanger, Norway, on Aug. 29, 2022. (Carina Johansen/NTB/AFP via Getty Images)

News Analysis

The shareholders of Twitter on the afternoon of Sept. 13 signaled their approval of Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover bid, but this development comes amid an intensifying legal battle as Musk seeks to pull out of a deal that looks less and less attractive because of longtime mismanagement and censorship of viewpoints on the social media platform, observers say.

The announcement about shareholder approval came in the midst of damning testimony by a high-profile Twitter whistleblower at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, at which Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal declined to appear, reportedly out of concern for how his testifying might affect the ongoing litigation with Musk.

During this hearing, Peiter Zatko, a security executive whom Twitter fired in January, stated that security at the social media platform was lax, and indicated that he and other security personnel at Twitter had received communications about at least one employee of Twitter being an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security, the regime’s top intelligence agency.

Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, former head of security at Twitter, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on data security at Twitter, on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Sep. 13, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Adding to these concerns, Twitter’s recent temporary blocking of content from The Epoch Times, its banning of former president Donald Trump in January 2021, its banning last month of author James Lindsay, its suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story reported by the New York Post, and other censorious measures have hurt the company’s reputation and weakened its value to the point where Twitter needs Musk far more than he needs Twitter, experts have told The Epoch Times.

A Troubled Deal

Musk, the colorful CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, had long been the subject of rumors about a pending takeover bid for the platform, which has a reported 396.5 million users globally, a significant chunk of the world’s total population of 7.75 billion people.

On April 14, Musk, then the biggest Twitter shareholder, formally made an offer to buy the social media platform for $44 billion, citing a desire to restore free speech on the platform. Signs, however, that the deal was in serious trouble came in May, when Musk sent out a tweet stating that the deal was temporarily on hold, out of concerns he harbored about the number of spam or “bot” accounts on Twitter, and shares of Twitter tumbled in value by more than ten percent.

In the face of claims from Twitter that the fake accounts made up no more than five percent of all monetizable daily active users, Musk asked Twitter to come forward and reveal the math behind the official figures. In a subsequent tweet, Musk stated that he was “still committed to acquisition,” but the proposed deal never regained the full momentum it had before. In July, the news came that Musk wanted out of the deal, and Twitter promptly took legal action, suing musk in Delaware court for breaching the merger agreement and for having allegedly acted in bad faith.

Musk has since countersued, alleging Twitter misrepresented the number of bots and spam accounts on the platform. A Delaware judge ruled last week that Musk may include Zatko’s whistleblower claims in his case against Twitter. The matter is set to go to trial in October.

The Problem of Censorship

The contentious nature of the exchanges between Twitter and Musk poisoned the environment for a merger, experts say, and things have gotten much worse as a consequence of the revelations at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. It might be convenient to blame the widely-publicized hearing for Musk’s wariness, but if the deal dies, it will be just as much a consequence of Twitter’s banning of unpopular speech, the experts argue.

“There is no question that Twitter’s free speech policies, or perhaps more accurately, lack of free speech, has diminished Twitter’s value both financially and in terms of reputation. Twitter has never been very transparent about its procedures and its credibility has taken a hit because of apparent bias and suppression,” Jeffrey McCall, a professor of communications at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, told The Epoch Times.

While in theory, the platform exists as a forum or “town square” where people can discuss and debate issues, Twitter gives the appearance of acting arbitrarily and autocratically in its banning of sources and content that go against its executives’ views and ideologies, McCall and others believe.

“In short, Twitter created a so-called public forum, then tried to manipulate that forum in apparent support of ideological purposes,” McCall continued.

The site’s free speech policies are not the sole reason the Musk deal got in trouble, but rather are part of an escalating series of mishaps that may have caused Musk to have second thoughts as he realized what a poorly managed entity he had proposed to buy.

In an 84-page complaint filed with regulators in July, Zatko said that Twitter was “lying about bots to Elon Musk.“ It said that executives have little incentive to carry out accurate measurements of the number of fake accounts and spam bots on the platform, adding that the true figure was probably ”meaningfully higher” than the 5 percent posited by Twitter.

“The recent whistleblower allegations further suggest an institution that was rather lax in managing fake accounts and subsequent disinformation. It is hardly surprising that Musk wants to terminate his purchase agreement. Twitter just isn’t worth what people once thought it was worth, and the lowered stock price of Twitter in the last year seems to support that notion,” McCall said.

The issue here is not that efforts to promote reasonable community guidelines and standards of discussion and debate are necessarily wrong, but that Twitter has been so inconsistent and biased in its application of vaguely articulated protocols, McCall believes.

“There are several noteworthy examples of Twitter trying to alter the rhetorical sphere, with the New York Post Hunter Biden story being a key one, along with sanctions on Trump, all the while allowing Twitter activity from a wide range of international extremists,” McCall said, alluding to Twitter’s decision to allow the communist dictatorship North Korea to make free use of an account.

“The social media world needs to be refereed, of course, but Twitter and other outlets engage in selective enforcement and with little explanation of how their enforcement mechanisms work,” he added.

Hunter Biden walks to Marine One on the Ellipse outside the White House in Washington on May 22, 2021. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Rather than attempting to classify legitimate news stories, like the New York Post’s report on Hunter Biden’s laptop, as out of bounds, and rather than trying to ban opposition political figures like Donald Trump, Twitter would do well to undertake some self-scrutiny in order to understand better why it is flailing, McCall believes.

“Twitter needs to do some looking in the mirror to self-assess how it allowed its brand to diminish. As a private entity, it can manipulate public dialogue however it likes, but the public doesn’t have to respect the organization. To build back some credibility, Twitter needs to be forthcoming about how its past mistakes have happened and explain how it will moderate the platform with more balance,” he added.

McCall’s views reflect a broad consensus among observers of the media and social media scenes. John Pavlik, a professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, told the Epoch Times that the recent and ongoing controversies have brought to the forefront questions about how Twitter operates, its reputation, and the status of free speech on the platform. In the end, the controversies may help promote wider clarity about Twitter, but not in the way that the company’s executives might hope.

“Revelations in this regard should help any potential investors make better-informed decisions. That’s a good thing. Understanding more about bots or the extent of automated accounts or tweets, for example, is a valuable bit of information,” Pavlik said.

As for the Musk litigation and the status of the envisioned merger, Twitter’s troubles are far from over, he suggested.

“Making predictions is almost always a fraught matter. But I would hazard to suggest we are likely to see further scrutiny about Twitter and how it operates in coming weeks. Improved transparency should help all investors, Elon Musk or anyone else, make better decisions with regard to Twitter and its value,” Pavlik said.

Good Faith Efforts

A different view comes from S. Shyam Sunder, a professor of media studies and Director of the Society for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence at Pennsylvania State University. Sundar does not believe that Twitter has necessarily acted in bad faith in attempting to enforce guidelines for speech and discussion, but even so, these efforts do not necessarily serve the interests of potential acquirers.

“I am not sure if the curbs on free speech and calls for transparency of operations will damage Twitter’s credibility, because these measures are geared toward ensuring a more robust and less toxic environment. In the long run, they may indeed improve the quality of discourse on the platform and make it more widely respected,” Sundar said.

“However, these curbs do make Twitter a less desirable acquisition target for those who want to convert it into their bully pulpit and let loose their own version of the truth, laden with exaggerations and misinformation,” he added.

The myriad issues around free speech on the platform and the conflicting regulatory regimes of Europe and other parts of the world may have proved slightly overwhelming to Musk and pushed him to have second thoughts about closing the deal, Sundar argued.

“It appears that Musk did not understand the full scope of Twitter’s operations or challenges when he made the initial bid. As he finds out more, he is realizing that Twitter is not a free-for-all, but there are rules and policies that have to be followed and more restrictive ones coming in the future, especially from Europe. If he doesn’t play ball with regulators in other parts of the world, Twitter’s market share will dwindle rapidly. He has probably decided it’s not worth the hassle,” Sundar said.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Twitter and to Elon Musk for comment.