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China protests give Elon Musk a true taste of running Twitter
Fake accounts designed to shout down protesters show what it is like managing a global social media company
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People holding up blank white sheets of paper in protest against Covid-19 restrictions in Beijing on Sunday.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Tim Culpan
It was bound to happen. On one side you have a big company under new management, large-scale layoffs, decimation of its content-moderation team and a fresh policy on what is allowed on the platform. On the other, a government efficient at controlling information, armed with teams of censors and platoons of bots, that is intent on dominating the conversation as citizens rise up in protest.
After Mr Elon Musk declared the “bird is freed” and set about what he sees as a rebalancing of Twitter away from the “woke” crowd and in favour of free-speech absolutists, he took his eye off the ball. Obsessed with the left-right dichotomy that has divided US politics, the world’s richest man appears to have given up on the rest of the planet. That matters as peaceful demonstrators face harsh retaliation in China, where Twitter is nominally banned but accessed through virtual private networks.
