“The Battle Over Who Controls the Internet”, The New York Times
By Jack Nicas and Paul Mozur, October 15, 2024
We explore an important shift in the yearslong struggle.
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.)
Two defiant tech leaders
For years, tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Larry Page and Jack Dorsey have mostly either acquiesced to the requests or walked away from markets. The executives sat for congressional hearings and hired more content moderators. They censored at the behest of dictators. They issued timid statements saying they had no choice but to follow local laws. As a result, governments didn’t shut the companies out, and they became some of the most valuable firms in history.
Musk and Durov have tried to pave a different way.
Musk complained loudly about the Brazilian Supreme Court justice’s orders. Then he simply stopped obeying. When the judge responded by blocking X, Musk tried various workarounds to evade the ban (they didn’t work) and even called on Brazilians to take to the streets against the judge.
Durov has taken a quieter approach. Under his watch, Telegram ignored government demands, as if it didn’t see their email. (When the same Brazilian judge briefly blocked Telegram in 2022, the company actually argued just that.)
Together the two men represent a new type of tech leader, one who sometimes uses his power to flout government orders. Both men appear emboldened by the culture wars, where pushing an absolutist vision of free speech has won them many devotees.
The state strikes back
But the governments have kept the upper hand.
Three weeks into X’s block in Brazil, Musk surrendered. X took down various accounts, complying with orders Musk had vowed to resist, while his lawyers asked the court to lift the ban. The site went live again last week.
More Takedowns Under Musk
How X handled government requests after Musk bought it in 2022
A bar chart showing how X (formerly Twitter) handled government requests after Musk bought it in 2002. The total compliance rate increased to 71 percent in 2024 from 54 percent in 2021.
First half of
each year
Takedown
requests
Compliance rate
67%
’21
18,520
Japan
79%
’24
46,650
61%
’21
5,450
Turkey
68%
’24
9,360
62%
’21
2,090
South Korea
73%
’24
5,890
51%
’21
290
European Union
80%
’24
2,460
37%
’21
17,030
All others
26%
’24
8,350
54%
’21
43,390
Total
71%
’24
72,700
Notes: Takedown requests comprise court orders and other legal demands. Twitter did not report data for 2022 and 2023. Figures are rounded.
Source: Company reports
By Karl Russell
Publicly, Musk didn’t mention his capitulation. That followed a pattern. While he has cast himself as a free-speech warrior, his own company has released data showing X has complied with government takedown requests more often than before he bought it. X said it obeyed such requests about 70 percent of the time in the first half of the year, compared with roughly half the time in 2021, the last time it disclosed data. (Japan and Turkey have filed the most takedown requests this year.)
Durov, meanwhile, has sounded more conciliatory than ever. In his first post after he was arrested in France, he admitted that Telegram’s fast growth “made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.” Then he announced the app would work more closely with governments to fight criminal activity.
For more
- Brazil gave one judge broad power to combat misinformation. After he blocked X, some wonder whether that was a good idea.
- On Telegram, criminals sell drugs, far-right protesters coordinate rallies and terrorists broadcast attacks. See how that happened.
- Apple, Google and Meta are making major changes in response to new laws and regulations.
- Twitter once banned people like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alex Jones who spread conspiracy theories. Musk brought them back on X.