Despite the outrage over how Elon Musk could tilt US political discourse after taking over the keys to Twitter Inc., his biggest challenges may be in the Pacific. Asia, home to more than half the world’s population, is Twitter’s biggest growth opportunity and arguably a much more extreme challenge. If the billionaire of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, in keeping with its promise to lift censorship, will encounter a wealth of complex regulations, sometimes enforced by authoritarian governments, pushed to the limits by a horde of Internet users for the first time. The numbers alone suggest that Musk’s biggest headaches are abroad. Revenue-generating daily active Twitter users totaled 179 million worldwide – down from 38 million in the US in 2021, according to its latest annual report. As a public company, Twitter has repeatedly stressed that it must comply with local regulations. Once a private concern controlled by the world’s richest man, Musk will take personal responsibility for navigating this thicket – and the consequences if he fails. “Asia has the potential to create or bring down the new Twitter,” said JJ Rose, a fellow at Australia’s non-partisan think tank Lowy Institute. “It will depend on how he approaches it, if he can exploit it for his goals of freedom of speech.” Representatives of Twitter and Musk did not respond to requests for comment. China One obvious point is that China is extremely important to Tesla, Musk’s main source of wealth. The billionaire will certainly face pressure – tacit or explicit – to improve Twitter policies to please Beijing. As the largest electric vehicle market in the world as well as a supplier of Tesla batteries, China is essential for the healthy development of the center of the Muscovite business empire. Tesla also benefited from significant tax breaks for setting up Gigafactory in Shanghai – its first overseas plant – and was allowed to take full control of its local operations, a rarity for a US company. A pressing issue is how Twitter handles China’s efforts to spread propaganda worldwide on the platform. The company in 2020 introduced labels for government officials and “state media” for publications such as Xinhua and the Global Times, and readers are reminded of this government support whenever they like or retweet stories. The Chinese media called the practice “intimidation” and have already begun to pressure the billionaire to overthrow it. “One of the toughest tests of Musk’s admitted commitment to expanding Twitter freedom of speech will be whether it can withstand pressure from Beijing to quench China’s criticism and challenge on the platform,” said Suzanne Nossel, CEO Advisor to the non-profit advocacy group PEN America. . “Any gradual change he makes to the platform in the name of freedom of speech risks falling under the weight of a heavy Chinese hand that controls what Musk has rightly called a global public square.” Elon Musk must remove my tag. Also, when people want to like or RT my tweets, they are now reminded by Twitter that “these are state media”. This is completely biased and a suppression of freedom of speech. Twitter needs to change such a policy. – Chen Weihua (@chenweihua) April 29, 2022 Chen Weihua, a journalist with the China Daily, spoke directly to Musk, arguing that such labels suppress freedom of speech and run counter to Musk’s principles. The billionaire has not given a clear indication of how he would decide on such matters. “By ‘freedom of speech’ I mean simply what is in line with the law,” Musk wrote on Twitter. “I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.” Bots are another matter. China has also used automated and anonymous accounts to distribute government messages, prompting Twitter to remove more than 170,000 accounts in 2020 to “spread geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party.” Musk is committed to “defeating spam bots or dying trying!” and sounds determined to continue accepting fake accounts. If our twitter bid succeeds, we will beat the spam bots or we will die trying! – Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022 Beijing has shown a willingness to punish billionaires who do not comply with its wishes. Regulators have forged the country’s technology giants and effectively ousted Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. co-founder from public view. Jack Ma. There are incentives offered beyond the purchase of electric vehicles. Musk’s SpaceX could certainly look for Chinese customers, while Boring Co. can benefit from lucrative infrastructure contracts in the country. And what about Twitter itself? A section of the Chinese population uses virtual private networks to circumvent Beijing and use the service. Could Beijing also offer access to its 1.4 billion inhabitants? Maybe on the right terms. They certainly would not include freedom of speech. India India is another high stakes market for Twitter: there are half a billion Internet users in the country and another half a billion are connected to the internet. Twitter plays a role in India-like internet dialogue in the US: the country’s political leaders use it to convey their messages, which are then broadcast on television and news networks. Prime Minister Narendra Monti adopted the service early and has 78 million followers on the service – more than the number of registered Twitter users in the country. But the New Delhi government has insisted on far more control than Washington has ever been able to exercise. Tensions in the relationship escalated during peasant protests in the country in 2020 and 2021, as Twitter and the government clashed over what kind of speech would be tolerated on the platform. When farmers’ groups demanded the repeal of certain laws that said they favored corporate-run farms, they took to the streets and social media to support their cause, including Twitter. Prime Minister Monti’s administration has insisted that the San Francisco-based company remove posts critical of its actions – and Twitter initially refused to comply. Indian authorities then threatened to jail the company’s executives, prompting Twitter to permanently suspend more than 500 accounts and block access to hundreds more. It was a direct example of how support for “freedom of speech” can conflict with government decrees and legal compliance. Later in 2021, New Delhi tightened its grip on social media such as Twitter and Facebook: the government insisted that companies identify specific individuals as grievance bureaucrats who would be responsible for handling formal removal requests and who could face imprisonment for non-compliance. Twitter joined, albeit after a delay. It is unclear how Musk will reconcile his support for more freedom of speech with such tight government controls. “Twitter must comply with the laws of the country,” the future owner said in an interview. The issue is hardly confined to India. Nearby Sri Lanka restricted access to social media in anticipation of the protests in April, while Myanmar’s military junta cut off Internet access altogether last year in a bid to quell opposition. Researchers have discovered that Twitter was the most blocked social networking platform in the world with a total of 12,379 hours of downtime in 2021. By “freedom of speech” I mean simply that which conforms to the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less freedom of speech, they will ask the government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, exceeding the law is against the will of the people. – Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2022 Southeast Asia Southeast Asia has become one of the fastest growing Internet markets, powered by countries such as Indonesia and India that use their huge Internet populations. Southeast Asia digital economy to reach $ 363 billion by 2025 But emerging markets come with their own set of issues. Meta Platforms Inc. names the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia as prominent sources of fake and duplicate accounts. Meta, whose Facebook and Instagram services face similar challenges to Twitter, has said in its annual accounts for years that about 11% of its users worldwide are duplicate accounts and another 5% are fake. As in China, Twitter will cut its work to eliminate synthetic users. Freedom of expression also violates local laws in this area. Singapore passed a controversial “foreign intervention” law last year, giving it the power to demand information from social media users in a bid to prevent foreigners from influencing domestic politics. Would that match Musk’s ambition for free expression? Vietnam has posed similar challenges to Internet service providers such as Facebook and Google of Alphabet Inc., with a cybersecurity law that essentially requires a choice between respecting users’ privacy and following local rules. The question that needs to be answered in the coming years is how much Musk will keep his promises to release Twitter – not just in the US, but in the rest of the world. “Asia is not North America and it is not Europe,” said Rose of the Lowy Institute. “Musk has a global view and his business interests to date tend to be quite universal. But something like the media requires a more subtle approach when applied globally.” (Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is being published by a synergy stream.)
