Will Twitter, under Elon Musk, uphold free speech in India
Parag Agrawal CEO Twitter
April 29, 2022
In March, Elon Musk tweeted to his 88 million followers on the Twitter platform: “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?” He followed up asking whether a new platform is needed.
Reacting to Musk’s tweet, Pranay Pathole tweeted to his 140,000 followers, “Would you (Musk) consider building a new social media platform…one where free speech…is given top priority…that kind of a platform is needed.” In a direct reply to Pathole’s post, Musk tweeted, “Am giving serious thought to this.”
Based on such tweets, the media assumed that, like former president Donald Trump who is building Truth Social, Musk was planning to set up a new online platform. “Musk wouldn’t be the first person to ditch the established social media platforms and set up their own,” the business site CNBC noted.
Maybe Pathole’s tweet was identified by one of Musk’s assistants, tasked with finding a post Musk could use to apparently disguise his intent to buy Twitter. Pathole, a 21-year-old based in India, describes himself as a “technology freak.” He reviews laptops, phones and other technology gadgets on social media platforms.
Then, after buying a roughly 10% of Twitter’s stock, Musk offered to buy the company for roughly $44 billion. This week, Twitter’s board accepted the offer. Apparently, the board had little confidence in Chief Executive Parag Agrawal’s goal of doubling revenues by next year. Or, if they had confidence, the board had very little clout since the board members and executives - except founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey - own less than one percent of Twitter’s stock; 0.3% to be precise. Dorsey, who owns 2.4% of the stock, supports Musk’s buyout of Twitter, noting in a tweet that, “Elon is the singular solution I trust.”
San Francisco based Twitter, is the 15th most popular social media site in the world, after Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Pinterest. Twitter is popular among the 25 to 34 age group. It has about 400 million users worldwide, of which about 230 million are active daily. In the U.S., about 10% of users account for 92% of the tweets.
In 2021, Twitter earned an operating income of $273 million, before one-time legal costs, on $5.1 billion in revenues, almost all of it from advertising. The company has nearly 8,000 employees worldwide.
Musk’s takeover of Twitter is expected to be completed later this year. He is the world’s richest person with an estimated net worth of about $250 billion, according to Forbes. He is the founder of electric vehicle maker Tesla, with a market value of $960 billion, space flight venture SpaceX and other businesses. Musk is using debt, with his Tesla stock as collateral, to fund much of his cost to buy Twitter. With more than $90 billion of shares pledged for loans, he is the most leveraged U.S. CEO, according to CNBC.
Indian American leadership at Twitter…for the present
If fired by Musk, Agrawal, 37-years-old, will be paid $39 million in compensation, triggered by a change of control provision. In 2021, Agrawal earned $30 million in salary, stock and other compensation. In a regulatory filing related to his offer to buy Twitter, Musk stated, “I don’t have confidence in [Twitter’s current] management.”
Agrawal was named CEO five months ago in November 2021. Earlier, from 2017, he served as the Chief Technology Officer, leading teams, including in machine learning, to improve consumer experience and accelerate audience and revenue growth. He joined Twitter in 2011, as a software engineer, while working on a Ph.D. Earlier, he spent over a year in research at Yahoo and also served in internships at AT&T Labs and Microsoft.
He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University, 2005-2012, and a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He finished high school from the Atomic Energy Central School in India.
Vijaya Gadde, 47, Twitter’s Chief Legal Officer, will be paid $13 million if she is fired by Musk. In 2021, she earned a total compensation of $17 million; $7 million in 2020; and $8 million in 2019. Earlier, Gadde served as the General Counsel, Head of Communications and in other roles at Twitter. She worked at Juniper Networks and, from 2000 to 2010, was at the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Gadde holds a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.
Impact on free speech on Twitter, under Musk, in India
Assuming Musk succeeds in buying Twitter, his intent of upholding “free speech principles” will be severely tested in India. In May 2021, Indian police went to Twitter’s Delhi office to serve a notice about its investigation into why a tweet, by an official of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was labelled as “manipulated media.” Under Twitter’s rules, the tag "manipulated media" is applied to posts which includes "media (videos, audio, and images) that have been deceptively altered or fabricated." The BJP runs the Indian government with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister.
"We, alongside many in civil society in India and around the world, have concerns with regards to the use of intimidation tactics by the police in response to enforcement of our global Terms of Service," Twitter said in a statement at that time.
In February 2021, Modi’s government implemented new guidelines which require social media companies to help the government or courts identify “the first originator of the information" posted on their platforms. Yet, even before the social media guidelines were introduced, global human rights groups were pointing to the continued erosion of civil liberties in India.
“Internet freedom in India declined dramatically for a third straight year,” Freedom House, for instance, noted in its Freedom of the Net 2020 Report. “International platforms were increasingly pressured to remove content critical of the government’s Hindu nationalist agenda.”
There were “internet shutdowns in at least nine states, including Delhi, (to suppress protests) as well as arrests for online speech and police violence against online journalists,” the report continued. Spyware campaigns targeted journalists, activists, lawyers, and other “human rights defenders, adding to an already restrictive environment for privacy.”
The “COVID-19 pandemic led to an information environment plagued by disinformation, often pushed by political leaders themselves…Government officials attempted to control the online narrative about the COVID-19 pandemic, issuing restrictions on reporting, arresting and detaining numerous people for their online speech.”
In April 2021, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram reportedly complied with an official order to remove posts critical of the government’s handling of the virus. Media reports say the blocked posts included those from an opposition leader holding Prime Minister Modi responsible for COVID-19 deaths in India.
India is Twitter’s third biggest market, with about 25 million users, after the U.S., with 80 million, and Japan with 60 million. Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and other U.S. social media companies are blocked from operating in China. So, they are aggressively pursuing growth in India. They view it as their largest potential market given its 1.4 billion population, the majority of whom are below age 35.
“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Elon Musk stated in a regulatory filing related to his bid for Twitter. However, while Musk is critical of free speech restrictions at Twitter, he is silent on the absence of civil liberties in China. After taking over Twitter, will he similarly remain silent on curtailment of free speech in India?
Mike Forsythe is a New York Times reporter and a U.S. Navy veteran. Following Musk’s Twitter purchase announcement, he tweeted, “Tesla's second-biggest market in 2021 was China (after the US) -Chinese battery makers are major suppliers for Tesla's EVs. -After 2009, when China banned Twitter, the government there had almost no leverage over the platform -That may have just changed.”
Responding to the tweet, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and the world’s second richest person with a net worth of $170 billion, tweeted, “Interesting question. Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?”
Correction and amplification
An earlier version incorrectly stated that Twitter’s board own less than one percent of Twitter’s stock. Founder and board member Jack Dorsey owns 2.4%; the rest of the board and senior executives own 0.3%.
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