The last two months have been a period of unrest and chaos for Twitter. Only 12 hours since Elon Musk taking the reins of the platform, the researchers observed a 500 percent increase in the use of the racist term “N-word”, while within two weeks the number of mentions of the word “Jew” increased fivefold, with the vast majority of references being anti-Semitic.

The new owner’s numerous and controversial actions included the return of controversial accounts (some of which were banned for racism and incitement to violence), as well as lifting bans on posts containing misinformation about COVID-19. And although much of the above was done in the name of “freedom of speech”, a little later the company moved to ban the promotion of competing media, and also blocked the accounts of journalists.

The vaunted “absolutism of free speech,” even if exercised at will, has significant financial and corporate reputational implications. At least half of the top 100 advertisers on Twitter, including giants like Chevrolet, Ford, General Motors, Apple and Volkswagen, have stopped advertising their products on the platform, adding to the financial pressure on all companies in the industry.

The platform has come under additional pressure, with scientists, journalists and celebrities announcing they are leaving Twitter for alternative platforms such as Mastodon, which now has over 2 million users. In the hope that the Musk-created enthusiasm will turn off most users, Twitter’s key competitors such as Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) have already begun offering alternatives.

Are all of the above signs that the platform will collapse, as many predict? Any prediction would be risky. If Twitter maintains or increases the number of users and the number of hours they spend on the platform, other companies’ ad revenue will lead to the medium’s longevity. But if the platform surrenders to a “free speech totalitarianism” without rules, and most importantly, users react with an exodus, then the future of the platform does not bode well. But are there any such signs?

In our previous article in “K” dated 12.11., we presented part of our work related to user tolerance for offensive, rude, aggressive, intolerant and/or threatening messages. In a survey that included a series of experiments, we exposed more than 5,000 US social media users to posts with different types of offensive language and analyzed how different posts impact the demand for stricter content management. The results of the study showed that the preferred strictness in content management is directly proportional to the severity of the corresponding message.

However, we noticed that users are quite familiar with this behavior. Even in messages prohibited by the platforms themselves, such as, for example. threat to the life of a member of the LGBTI community, only about 50% wanted the content to be completely removed or the attacker’s account to be blocked. In most of the posts, addressed to different recipients each time, the vast majority did not want the slightest interference. So it’s far from clear that this development will deter users from using Twitter, let alone mass abandoning it.

Why fast user response? The argument that users are already accustomed to such toxic social media behavior is valid. But it also turns out that for most citizens, freedom of speech is more important than protecting those who could be harmed by exposure to toxic language. In short, Musk’s “free-speech absolutism” does not necessarily conflict with users’ values. And it is not a phenomenon that is part of the American identity. According to the portion of our work that compares international trends and attitudes (shown in the chart below), Greeks, Belgians, Austrians, and even Germans seem to be on the same wavelength as Musk and American public opinion.

It’s not that users weren’t embarrassed by this behavior: they were embarrassed, but at the same time they “enjoyed disgust” at rudeness, intolerance, insults and threats. This is the great weapon of social media. If Twitter collapses, it will be for financial reasons related to the situation, and not because of how the new owner perceives free speech.

* Spyros Kosmidis is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oxford.

** Yannis Theoharis is Professor of Digital Management and Head of the Department of the same name at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).