‘It’s prison or compliance’, Elon Musk on social media rules, freedom of speech in India
- The Tesla CEO said that in India the social media rules are stricter than they are in other western countries.
Twitter chief Elon Musk on Wednesday in an interview with media outlet BBC said that it is not possible for the micro-blogging site Twitter to ensure a similar parametre of freedom of speech as is offered in US and other Western countries.
The Tesla CEO said that in India the social media rules are stricter than they are in other western countries.
BBC conducted an interview conducted on Twitter Spaces, where Elon Musk said, "The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict, and we can't go beyond the laws of a country... if we have a choice of either our people go to prison, or we comply with the laws, we'll comply with the laws."
Elon Musk also mentioned that he was all in favour of free speech and barring of censorship on the social media platform.
Elon Musk also admittedly implied that Twitter often blocks and censures content in India, said that if Twitter doesn't comply with the rules, its employees in India will end up going to jail.
In an interview with the BBC at Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco, the billionaire tech tycoon who bought the microblogging platform last October agreed that the firm will change its newly added label for the media corporation's main account from "government funded media" to "publicly-funded".
He was asked about the level of content moderation undertaken with reference to reports from India that several tweets linking to the BBC's two-part 'India: The Modi Question' documentary were blocked from access in the country earlier this year.
"I'm not aware of that particular situation," Musk told the BBC.
Musk, who also runs carmaker Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX, acquired Twitter for around USD 44 million – a takeover he admitted during the interview went through because a judge was about to force him to make the purchase.
"It's not been boring. It's been quite a rollercoaster… pain level has been extremely high, this hasn't been some kind of party," he said, as he defended his running of Twitter since the acquisition.
Discussing the finances, the entrepreneur said Twitter is now "roughly breaking even" as most of its advertisers have returned and claimed that cutting the workforce from just under 8,000 at the time he bought the firm to about 1,500 had not been easy.
He admitted he did not fire everybody in person, saying: "It's not possible to talk with that many people face to face."
The exit of many of Twitter's engineers since Musk bought the company has raised concerns about the stability of the platform. He acknowledged some glitches, including outages on the site, but said the outages have not been for very long and the site was currently working fine.
In the interview – which was broadcast live via the Twitter Spaces service – Musk was also challenged over misinformation and hate speech on the platform.
(With inputs from PTI)
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Business NewsNewsWorld‘It’s prison or compliance’, Elon Musk on social media rules, freedom of speech in India
First Published:12 Apr 2023, 10:29 PM IST
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