The war between
President Trump and Jack Dorsey of Twitter seems to be escalating. In response
to Trump’s action on social media, Twitter now has hidden Trump’s tweet on
Minneapolis violence claiming it encourages violence and goes against the norms
of Twitter. The retribution from Trump is only to be expected. In a political
universe of US, this seems to open a new chapter. While television channels and
newspapers are known to create polarising views against candidates and routinely
turn partisan, this is unusual given it is one of the earliest instances on the
social media. In fact, social media by claiming itself to be a platform has distinguished
itself from the print and broadcast media. This distinction has enabled social
media firms escape liability from posting of third party content.
Media companies
in the West as suggested above find it convenient to become partisan. They go
at miles to influence elections using their power of information production,
distribution and dissemination. The social media has increasingly playing an
important role in the determination of outcomes of elections in many parts of
the world. The India right coalesced around Twitter to build a narrative, to
mobilize its constituency to turn the tide of 2014 in favour of Narendra Modi.
Similarly, the narratives on Twitter played a critical role in mobilizing
support for an ‘outsider’ like Trump first in winning the nomination and later
the election. In the British context, the social media mobilization by the
Indian constituency played a role in boosting the presence of Boris Johnson of
late and David Cameron before that. Thus Twitter despite it being ranked below
its social media competitors like Facebook or Instagram or even YouTube finds
itself very critical and prominent in building and consolidating political and
ideological conversations.
The conversations
that get fostered on Twitter enable it to play a role of arbiter of information
dissemination. The information produced is by the thousands of users across the
world. In fact, it virtually costs nothing to produce this information. All
that is needed is a platform on which this conversation takes place. The byproduct
of the conversation thus happened is the information produced that when
distributed and disseminated turns into a powerful mechanism of narrative
building and policy formation.
Conversations
sustain human mankind. From a village square to top level conferences, it is
the conversation that makes or mars. What were the personal element in the
village town square conversations made way in the technological world as
conversations or posts on Facebook or Instagram. The visual element to the same
was given in YouTube. The professional discussion and signals in the office
world formal or informal, official or demi-official, paved the foundations for
Linkedin. The socio-eco-political nature of conversations morphed as public
good on Twitter. While these conversations on platforms were essentially public
goods with the platforms have the responsibility of allowing free expression,
the private nature of conversations too evolved with passage of time. The
Whatsapp groups, Telegram channels, private conversations on Whatsapp, Telegram
or Signal or for that matter Twitter DM, all point out to emergence of club
goods in varying degrees. Similarly video call platforms like Zoom or Skype
perform the same objective. While the platforms or technology intermediaries
might seek to control the public narrative on these platforms, it is the
concerns over control of private nature of conversation either manifesting as
private good or club good.
Imagine a
scenario of Twitter using its monopoly and control over the pipeline intercepts
the DM of President Trump to his party colleagues and passes them to the team
of Joe Biden. Imagine a scenario of such DMs exchanged between world leaders
finds itself to the top echelons of Chinese government. These can give
significant boost in intelligence gathering and analysis at the very top. The firms
directly involved in the same on the grounds of their personal bias against
some leader or the other can shake things radically. They may be tried for
treason, espionage etc. but that would be post mortem because the damage would
have been done. The charges might not hold strong if the leakages were internal
to the country like a strategy of a party being leaked to the other party. One
might not need a crude mechanism like Watergate to do the same. The biases or partisanship
of these platforms is sufficient. Moreover, the network externalities generated
by these platforms make them relatively indispensable. There are already
apprehensions of Zoom conversations finding their way into China.
While the
scenario might appear farfetched and from the realm of fiction, it is not so.
In fact one can go back around 150 years to the year 1876 to find a similar occurrence.
In the year 1876, telegrams were the key mode of long distance communication. The
alternative was the snail mail. Telegraphy in the United States was under the
monopoly of Western Union. Common carriage principles as we know it today was
deemed inapplicable then. This gave Western Union absolute control on what
could pass through its telegraph pipeline and what could not. Western Union had
relationship with Associated Press. This meant only the AP reports could be
wired through the Union cables onto various newspapers across the length and breadth
of the country. No other wire service provider existed. In the elections of
1876, Western Union along with AP and New York Times backed Republican
candidate Rutherford Hayes and using their monopoly over information flow
ensured he got tremendous publicity. Yet the opponent Sam Tilden held his
ground. The election went to the wire so as to speak. The outcome was result pof
complex interplays among various actors through the months from the elections.
Yet, the role of Western Union cannot be understated in determining the
outcome. While the opponent held a lead among the delegates, they did not
command the majority of the delegates. There were telegrams being exchanged
among the Democrat leadership which indicated a sort of nervousness or
uncertainty among the outcome. Western Union intercepted these telegrams and
New York Times played a role in conveying these messages to the Republican
leadership. Having secured such vital information about their opponents, the
Republicans formulated a counter strategy of their Governors in the South disputing
the results and even seeking manipulating them.
The role of the
Western Union was not known for many years but what it conveyed was the sheer
crass pursuit of political power can lead to misuse the monopoly over
information flow on a platform that is deemed to be public. Such misuse of
information flow and analysis is sought to be done by Jack Dorsey today. What
Twitter is doing today is not about genuine attempt to flag misinformation
being peddled but a deliberate attempt to control the narrative and skew the
same against Donald Trump. The attempts to skew the narrative against Trump is
again a product of the biases that Jack and team harbour against the President.
The company can claim to be a town square or media but not both. Irrespective
of the merits of the Twitter stand, such actions will erode the nature of the
internet and its freedom than enhancing its status. It stands antagonistic to
the Natan Sharansky’s town square test.
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