Jack Nicas and Paul Mozur
We’ve each covered the conflict between tech companies and governments for a decade.
For years, the battle between governments and tech giants has played out behind the scenes.
Then Brazil blocked X, Elon Musk’s social network. For the past five weeks, the site went dark across the nation of 200 million after Musk ignored court orders to pull down certain accounts. (It came back online last week after he eventually complied.) Meanwhile, in France, authorities have charged Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, a free-for-all messaging app, with a slew of crimes. They accuse him of refusing to comply with investigations into the spread of illicit content on the platform.
We are witnessing an important shift in the yearslong struggle over who controls the internet. Governments are becoming more demanding, just as some tech leaders seek to promote themselves as free-speech martyrs.
But as the dust has settled, a clear winner has emerged. In today’s newsletter, we’ll explain.
Governments assert control
The world woke up to the dangers of online disinformation about a decade ago. But governments do not typically move fast. That means, in many places, regulation is just arriving now. Last year, a European Union law required tech companies to better police their platforms. In Brazil, a Supreme Court judge has been ordering the removal of social media accounts he calls threats to democracy.
In some countries, the crackdown is tied to an erosion of democracy. The Indian government, for example, is forcing social networks to limit content it sees as critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And Indonesia has unfurled one of the world’s harshest laws against online speech in what authorities have described as an effort to maintain public order.
As a result, tech companies are taking down more content. Google said it fielded more than 100,000 government requests to remove content from its platforms last year, up 87 percent from 2021. Meta — which runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — reported the number of accounts, posts and comments it took down at the request of governments last year was up sixfold. (This doesn’t include Indonesia, because enforcement of its new law breaks the curve; it ordered Meta to take down 47.7 million items last year.)