Technology Assessment and Social Media: The Twitter Problem

INTRODUCTION

The purchase and managerial overhaul of Twitter by Elon Musk, perhaps the most-discussed tech industry event of 2022, is more than just a corporate-concerned issue. Musk’s purchase of the platform, one of the most crucial in the global flow of news, information, and culture, has yielded shock waves which have already reverberated throughout the entirety of social media. In particular, the changes in management, leadership style, and most importantly company and platform policy that Musk has already begun to implement at the “New” Twitter have drawn both praise and concern from both tech and social media industry agents, but also from external public and private actors. This concentrated attention now thrust onto Twitter from all angles is not merely a matter for discussion on media channels, however, and further provides a case study ripe for examination when considering the concept and execution of Technology Assessment (TA) and its relation to Tech-concerned policy worldwide.

The following study analyzes the ongoing issues and events surrounding the status of social media as a focus of TA, utilizing the case of Musk’s Twitter reforms as an emblematic example of a currently assessed target for policy actions. Moreover, it argues that uncertain outcomes of Twitter’s current changes, as well as the continuing spotlights being shone onto the platform by policy-concerned actors, reveal social media as a uniquely difficult target for TA, particularly in its articulated theoretical forms of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Real-Time Technology Assessment (RTTA). Finally, in critically evaluating the existing assessment mechanisms being employed in the case of Twitter, the piece will argue that the inherently international and interconnected nature of open social networks will likely render effective TA of such networks an extraordinarily complex task for policy actors, barring extensive and possibly problematic levels of government regulation.

THE TWITTER PROBLEM, EXPLAINED

When Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022, reforms at the company were immediately initiated towards fulfilling the new owner’s stated goal of making twitter a so-called “free speech” platform, in response to longstanding criticisms that the platform had unjustly censored and restricted conservative, right-of-center, or other controversial and political content since the mid-2010s (Dang; Griffith). These reforms, largely concerning the site’s content algorithms, user verification, and content moderation policies, immediately drew ire from actors across the world, from left-progressive activist groups in the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union, to private corporations and business (who protested the changes by suspending advertising campaigns on the site), and even US and EU governmental-regulatory actors (Hubbard, Gibson; Che). It was clear that powerful agents on both sides of the public-private divide were upset and concerned with the prospects of Musk’s reforms achieving their desired goals.

Out of these sets of disconcerted actors, it is the last-mentioned that is of special interest for this study; the governmental actors, specifically in the United States and European Union, who have expressed critical views and floated often-vague legal threats against the platform and its new ownership since reforms began. From the American FTC and Senate Democrats urging concern and investigation of the company following reforms to content moderation and user verification, to the EU’s Thierry Breton demanding the platform to increase moderation and open algorithmic access to fit European speech and data privacy laws, it is clear that the largest threats to Musk’s new Twitter policy changes are not private advertiser boycotts, but legal challenges by public government authorities (Klar; Che; Scott; Al Jazeera).

Upon considering these specifically governmental responses and attitudes towards Twitter’s reforms within the American and broader global social media tech spheres, it can be stated that said reforms and their respective responses/attitudes reflect a fundamental aspect of government-tech sphere policy relations; governmental approaches to tech innovation. While governmental (largely politically motivated) concerns over Twitter’s ongoing changes and stated future goals might not seem to inherently surround the innovation angle of tech sphere policy relations, the nature of said concerns, even despite their seemingly political motivations, reveal the problematic nature of government approaches to social media innovation in-general. This aforementioned problematic nature is only nature, given the inherently international nature of otherwise American social media companies, who unlike in countries like China (with its government-protected and state-moderated social media companies) operate across borders and thus face vastly more regulations and country-specific restrictions. A result of this international reality of a global interconnected internet is that companies wishing to pursue innovation and change in their platforms’ organization, content, moderation, and data protection policies, must contend with both domestic and international law despite the innovation itself originating within American jurisdiction.

With reference to the case of Twitter, the innovation angle becomes especially problematic. Regardless of political criticisms surrounding content moderation and speech regulations, it is clear that Musk’s targeted reforms and changes do constitute innovation within the social media tech sphere, including the encryption of direct messages, algorithm and account moderation transparency, a removal of permanent suspensions, and reforms to content “reach” depending on regulated content. These goals, markedly different from current social media approaches (interpreted more-broadly) are all major innovation projects, not only for a platform as large and globally relevant as Twitter, but for a general social media sphere which increasingly faces international criticism for their aforementioned current approaches to (for example), content algorithm utilization.

It is when the now-raised points on Twitter’s ongoing innovation in the social media sphere is met with increasing government threats and criticism that this study’s theoretical crux can finally come into discussion. The case of Twitter represents a currently relevant problem for students, scholars, and policy analysts looking to understand the relationship between government policy and technological innovation, as it again exemplifies the problematic nature of social media companies’ regulation and policy-fitness given their international reach and innovatory scope.

RRI AND RTTA: POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS TO THE TWITTER PROBLEM?

When examining a potential solution or at-least a potentially helpful analytical lens for better understanding the nature of the aforementioned “Twitter Problem”, two lenses and approaches might be considered from a government policy perspective, those being the frameworks of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Real-Time Technology Assessment (RTTA). In examining the potential fit of these theoretical frameworks to the Twitter case study, the study can then accomplish its stated task of elucidating the complex nature of the Twitter Problem, and its implications for social media innovation policy-governance more broadly.

First considering RRI, the approach calls for “responsible innovation” principles for scientific policy and governance: including the anticipation of political and social concerns from innovatory actions, reflexivity from involved actors, inclusion of non-expert (public/citizen) voices in innovation processes, and responsiveness to feedback and circumstantial changes (Stilgoe et al., 1570-1572). With reference to the Twitter Problem, this framework, generally considered, seems prima facie to be a good fit for the presented problem, and perhaps might already characterize Musk’s ongoing behaviour thus far in the reform process. His polling of Twitter’s user base, consultation with concerned-critical advocacy groups, commitment to transparency and changes through interaction with individual commenters, and even responding directly to feedback using Twitter replies themselves, all represent the sort of reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness indicated in the RRI framework (Jackson; Birnbaum). The anticipation principle is much more complicated, as given the political nature of both Musk’s innovatory reforms and the governmental pushback to them, an RRI-styled approach of concern anticipation seems a bad fit for the problem at hand, which due to the bipolar nature of its framing (either pro- or anti- “free speech” or “content moderation” on both Musk and public authorities' part) would not yield a cohesive picture as to which concerns should be addressed primarily.

Even with this complexity raised on the topic of anticipation, however, it might still be argued that Musk’s inclusive, reflexive, and responsive engagement with the Twitter stakeholders (its user base, advertisers, staff, and regulators) might be the best-fitting alternative to a fully anticipatory approach, one that holds its overall goals and innovatory aims in mind, but pursues such aims with constant feedback and communication with those stakeholders affected. On the other side of the problem, however, the RRI-fit alternative described above seems less satisfactory. For government actors seemingly opposed on the outset (politically, on the level of the proposed innovations themselves), a framework of “responsible innovation” is inherently more-concerned with the innovator-in-question than the post-hoc regulators in government positions. When factoring in the unavoidable problem of social media’s international scope, this sort of approach on the government-side of the debate seems untenable at best, and impossible to pursue at worst.

The government side of the policy-theory framework problem is not entirely hopeless, thankfully, as the other presented approach, RTTA, might offer a better fit upon close examination. Real-Time Technology Assessment urges the direct integration of social and ethical concerns held by stakeholders and policymakers from the beginning of scientific and technological research (Guston and Sarewitz, 94, 101). As its name suggests, allows for constant “real-time”, rather than post-hoc stakeholder involvement, and the systematically integrated critique, observation, and anticipatory influence of involved actors in any innovation resulting from the aforementioned research (Ibid, 94, 103). Furthermore, RTTA urges (as part of the anticipatory governance implied in its direct integration strategy) a constant dialogue between those on the side of the scientific innovator with the (implied non-scientific/technological) social-political (policy-interested) stakeholders (Ibid, 103-104). Such a strategy, of maintaining constant dialogue, would potentially allow for issues of aim/goal disagreement to rear their heads at a much lower frequency and intensity than would be possible otherwise, as both parties’ interests would be fundamentally integrated from the start of the innovatory process (Ibid, 105-106). It seems, based on this cursory overview, that RTTA might be able to fulfill the full vision of the earlier-discussed RRI concept, a framework for anticipatory policy governance through technology assessment that allows for stakeholder involvement throughout the process of innovation.

However, while this framework seems like an option for better-fit, it must first be tested for alignment with the study’s Twitter case study. Theoretically speaking, a direct integration between Twitter (the technological innovator) and the critical government actors (social/political stakeholders) throughout the reform process would make sense. Concerns over moderation, while fundamental to the innovator’s overall goals, would be matched from the start by policy-interested assessors who might have the governance-driven initiative to meet them in the ideational stage of innovational development. In the real world, however, the situation is more complicated. Firstly, it must again be stated that Twitter, despite being an American company, operates (as many social media companies do) around the world, internationally. Jurisdictions other than the United States would similarly wish to retain their sovereignty over protected data, as well their citizen’s access to online information potentially problematic to social, economic, or political order. Simply put, the sort of direct integration between innovators and government policymakers and stakeholders would be impossible in the current case study of Musk’s Twitter. To have (American) government interests explicitly integrated into social media innovation itself would immediately prove worrying to states already concerned about data security, and their implicit integration otherwise might be seen as untrustworthy to other state actors wishing to allow Twitter services within their jurisdictions, with the company potentially visible as a mere asset for American authorities.

Additionally, these concerns leave out the fundamental problem that in the case of Twitter, real-time integration from the beginning of innovation simply is not possible. Twitter is a fully private company under the ownership of one man, a man who in this moment happens to be at-least in-part opposed by the current American government, on the grounds of socio-political values. Musk, and therefore Twitter, simply have no interest in allowing the government such extreme integration into their operations, as the government in-question opposes the aims of said operations. This fundamental opposition of interests would become even-more apparent when the claims of actors such as the EU are taken into account, as Twitter would then become nothing more than a vehicle for government interests, removing the interest of the American government to have innovation occurring distinctly within its own jurisdictional borders, and again being fundamentally unappealing to Twitter leadership. It seems as though much like with RRI before it, RTTA simply is not a framework with good-fit for the case study of Twitter innovation. All of this is not to say that principles of these frameworks, which themselves are theoretically sound, could not be or should not be introduced into future (problematic) innovation processes, but is merely to state the facts of the world such innovation takes place in. Governments and private companies can have (at points) fundamentally differing interests, and while no company can operate outside the law, so long as their innovations are not illegal (in the American case), the government’s hostile interest must not simply be agreed to. Therefore, while technology assessment remains a field with strong theoretical frameworks behind its application, it falters when exposed to the particular case study at hand of social media. Under close analytical observation and critical assessment, the Twitter Problem remains unresolved, a reflection of the complex, interconnected world of differing national and private interests that social media innovation occurs within.

CONCLUSIONS: AN OPEN FUTURE

This study has argued that in the case of Twitter’s ongoing platform innovation in the social media sphere under Elon Musk, forms of stakeholder-concerned, anticipatory technology assessment (TA), particularly those of RRI and RTTA, are perhaps insufficient to solve the fundamental problem surrounding Twitter and social media governance. The inherent complexities posed by social media as an international platform, combined with the particularities of the current situation surrounding Twitter’s and the American and EU governing authorities’ conflicting platform governance interests, renders what this study earlier named the “Twitter Problem” at-yet seemingly unsolvable utilizable the proposed frameworks of technology assessment on the part of policy stakeholders in government. However, although the Twitter Problem remains yet unsolved, the broader technology sphere of social media is not beyond the reach of interested authorities and stakeholders. It is entirely possible that in the future, as theories of technology assessment become more-robust, public/private partnerships become more directly integrated within the social media sector, and internationalization/globalization of tech markets continues, that a complex interdependence of private and government stakeholders might one day enable the sort of governance discussed in this study. Although the Twitter Problem, for better or for worse, continues to be unsolved, as long as methods for technology assessment themselves continue to innovate, the future for tech-policy governance remains full of opportunities.

Michael Medina is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Public Policy at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy, to be completed in 2024. He holds a Joint Honours MA Degree in International Relations & Philosophy from the University of St Andrews, and specializes in Technology Policy, Realist International Relations Theory, and Political Ethics.

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