Elon Musk on Twitter, “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy”

Elon Musk, the billionaire, asked on Twitter whether people believe the social media giant “rigorously adheres” to the principle of free speech. When he announced the poll, Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk warned that the results would be significant.

Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.

Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2022

“Free speech is critical to the functioning of a democracy.” Do you think Twitter strictly adheres to this principle?” He tweeted, giving his social media followers two options for voting: yes or no.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who stepped down as CEO in November, responded to Musk’s poll on Thursday, saying “the choice of which algorithm to use (or not) should be open to everyone.”
Over 10.27 lakh people had voted seven hours before the poll closed, with more than 82% voting in favour of the Twitter algorithm being open source.

The choice of which algorithm to use (or not) should be open to everyone https://t.co/o2DkSTWW0O

— jack (@jack) March 25, 2022

Over 4.33 million votes were cast in a little more than two hours, with more than 64% voting “no.”

This comes less than 24 hours after Musk asked for feedback on whether Twitter’s algorithm should be open source.