Twitter buyer Elon Musk calls himself a free speech absolutist, but that could be put to the test in the Middle East where critics say authoritarian governments use the platform to track opponents and spread disinformation.
In a region where the local media is often controlled by the state, millions of people rely on social media platforms to follow news and express their opinions.
"His 'anything goes' ideology will play into the hands of authoritarian states to just manipulate Twitter to create fake accounts and to intimidate others under the guise of free speech." In 2020, Twitter took down thousands of accounts linked to Egypt, Honduras, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Serbia for either taking directions from the governments or promoting pro-government content.
Abdullah Alaoudh, director of research for the Gulf region at DAWN , is familiar with the consequences of using Twitter in Saudi Arabia. Maryam Al-Khawaja, a Bahraini activist who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States and whose father is serving a life sentence for his role in Bahrain's pro-democracy movement, said Twitter was an effective tool during the 2011 uprising."Twitter was already rife with harassment issues, and this will only escalate.
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