Twitter: “If Elon Musk drives it into self-destruction, the only people who will be happy are the worst dictators and war criminals”

From Arab Springgoing through the motions #Metoo the #Blacklivesmatter until the popular protest movement in Iranthe Twitter imposed as global platform for activists and dissidentswho now risk losing a valuable tool if the network goes down.

Although there are other platforms, Twitter “is by far the most influential in allowing the media and leadership to direct attention to what is happening in the world. In this sense, it is a unique and special platform” says Mahsa Alimardani, its researcher international organization for the defense of freedom of expression Article 19.

In Iran today, for example, Twitter “represents the only real access to voices and eventssince there are no foreign correspondents and independent journalists who can broadcast what is happening”.

In recent days via (and) Twitter it has become possible to transmit images from demonstration in China at the world’s largest iPhone factory.

And in the past, Twitter has served as a mouthpiece and driver of global mobilization for a series of popular uprisings: the Arab Spring, the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, the war in Syria, the protest movement in Iran… often highlighting the reality of the repression imposed by its authoritarian regimes planet.

“Twitter has kept records of so many different events. There are so many activists who have turned to Twitter over time. If all these records are lost, it will be a great loss, since they are traces of Historysays Mahsa Alimardani.

The memory of the uprisings

In Egyptduring the Arab Spring in early 2011, “Twitter was used mainly by educated Egyptians, unrepresentative of the world that was on the streets making the revolution a reality,” says Nadia Idle, a British-Egyptian activist who was present at Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the uprising that led to the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.

“But that doesn’t mean Twitter wasn’t important,” says Nadia Idle, co-author of Tweets from Tahrir (2011).

“Twitter was imposed as a venue for broadcasting the events (…) Many users were considered “citizen journalists” and took on the task of reporting events with accurate information and video and image streaming,” Nadia Idle and Alex Nance write in the book’s introduction.
After its acquisition by Elon Musk, the network is deeply destabilized and threatened with extinction.

“It’s hard to describe the value that Twitter has gained over the past ten years (…) It’s obvious that right now that Elon Musk is leading Twitter to self-destruction, the only people who will be happy are its worst dictators and war criminals world. For the first time in fifteen years, they will be safe from this world’s most powerful real-time global surveillance tool,” Charles Lister, a researcher at the Middle East Institute in Washington, wrote on the platform.