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Michael Klos talked about Elon Musk and the Twitter files on Nieuwsuur

Michael Klos, Assistant Professor at Leiden University, discussed the ‘Twitter files’ on Dutch television programme Nieuwsuur.

Ever since the billionaire Elon Musk took over Twitter, the online messaging platform itself has been a trending topic. From leaked internal messages – the Twitter files – it would appear, according to Musk, that the company deliberately made political decisions by removing or altering certain messages.

‘If we take a good look at the Twitter files, I see an ordinary content-moderation-process, in which you, as a platform, very quickly have to make decisions about the different interests and risks,’ says Klos, who conducts research into the freedom of speech on the internet. ‘A judge in the Netherlands sometimes takes months during a case on punishable content. A moderation team at an online platform has a few hours at most.’

American law gives citizens a lot of room to voice their opinions, but the online platforms also have a lot of room to make decisions, Klos: ‘They have created a living room, where they invite other people. And they are allowed to create the rules there. That means that they are not immediately breaking the law by deleting accounts or not allowing certain content.’

You can watch the interview here (in Dutch).

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