Elon Musk is reportedly considering moving Twitter servers to Starlink after the Biden administration and European Union threaten him after acquisition.
Twitter’s acquisition has sparked concerns about hate speech and the dissemination of misinformation in both the United States and Europe. As a result of threats from both the United States and the European Parliament, Elon Musk is apparently considering shifting all Twitter servers to Starlink.
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Many seem to think that Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter is a bad thing. Corporate media as well as progressive pundits have voiced concerns after the tech billionaire purchased the social media platform for a sum of USD$44 billion on Monday; their biggest concern being free speech.
Just a day after the acquisition liberal political pundits took to CNN to explain that the Musk’s acquisition of Twitter could cost American Democrats (DNC) the election as Musk will be able to suspend the account of Democratic political candidates and suppress the flow of information.
“If you own all of Twitter or Facebook or what have you, you don’t have to explain yourself. You don’t even have to be transparent. You can ban one parties candidate or all of their candidates — all of its nominees. Or you could just turn down the reach of their stuff and turn up the reach of something else and the rest of us wouldn’t even find out about it until after the election,” a reporter for CNN said.
However, when identical worries were aired by conservatives ahead of the 2020 elections, they were branded conspiracy theorists and banned of Twitter for disseminating misinformation about “election fraud.”
To help develop the social media network, Elon Musk announced that he wants Twitter to be an open platform for free speech and that he wants Twitter’s algorithm made available as open source code.
Musk’s decision came shortly after he criticized Twitter’s handling of censorship and shutting down conversations about political partisan things such as health and science.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Tesla CEO wrote in statement .
Musk clarified: “By ‘free speech’, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.”
Musk threatened by globalist.
Responding to these concerns, the Biden administration announced that it will revise Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields social media firms like Facebook and Twitter from being held liable for any illegal content or remarks that are posted on their platforms in the good faith removal or moderation of third-party material they deem “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.”
If this is the case, Elon Musk and Twitter could be extremely exposed to attacks from dissident groups, who could potentially flood their network with unlawful content; a strategy that has often been utilised by liberal activists to shut down right-wing discussion forums.
The US government was, in a sense, threatening Elon Musk if he allowed free speech to take place on his platform.
Additionally, the European Union also threatened to fine and sanction Musk for allowing free speech on his platform.
Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner for the internal market, told the Financial Times that Musk must follow laws on filtering unlawful and harmful content online after Twitter accepted the billionaire’s $44bn buyout offer.
Breton said: “We welcome everyone. We are open but on our conditions. At least we know what to tell him: ‘Elon, there are rules. You are welcome but these are our rules. It’s not your rules which will apply here.'”
He said: “Anyone who wants to benefit from this market will have to fulfil our rules. The board [of Twitter] will have to make sure that if it operates in Europe it will have to fulfil the obligations, including moderation, open algorithms, freedom of speech, transparency in rules, obligations to comply with our own rules for hate speech, revenge porn [and] harassment.”
“If [Twitter] does not comply with our law, there are sanctions — 6 per cent of the revenue and, if they continue, banned from operating in Europe,” he concluded.
Twitter on Starlink.
New owner of Twitter is reportedly considering shifting its servers to Starlink, a business controlled by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk himself.
Starlink is a satellite internet constellation maintained by SpaceX that provides high-speed internet access. It currently delivers satellite Internet access coverage to 32 nations where its usage has been authorised, with plans to expand to a global network in the future.
Starlink internet works by delivering information via the vacuum of space, where it travels considerably quicker than in fiber-optic cable and can reach far more people and places.
While most satellite internet services today come from single geostationary satellites that orbit the world at around 35,000km, Starlink is a constellation of numerous satellites that orbit the planet considerably closer to Earth, at about 550km, and cover the whole globe.
The round-trip data time between a user and a Starlink satellite – also known as latency – is substantially lower than with geostationary satellites because of the low orbit of Starlink satellites. Thus, services such as online gambling, which are typically not available on other satellite broadband networks, can now be delivered through Starlink.
What will change?
If Elon Musk migrates Twitter to SpaceX Starlink servers not much will change. He will still need to abide by the laws of different countries if he wishes to have the service live there. The move will not bypass authoritarian government censorship. So why bother?
By moving Twitter to SpaceX Starlink servers, Elon Musk effectively secures the data, preventing leaks, hackers, and other types of attacks.
Additionally, Twitter will not be bound by the ever-changing terms and conditions of another server host, and hence will avoid the server wipes that intentionally occurred with Parler following January 6th protests of 2020.
Twitter is currently hosted by Jeff Bezos owned Amazon Web Services, the same company that, without notice, terminated Parler’s services shortly after the January 6th protests for violating their terms of service for spreading “misinformation” and “hate speech.”