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“How he treats pressure from countries like Saudi Arabia and India—I think those are key indicators of where he’s going with the platform,” says David Kaye, former UN special rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression and clinical professor of law at the University of California, Irvine.

While Twitter does not boast nearly as many users as Meta-owned Facebook or Instagram, it is widely used by activists, civil society groups, journalists, and politicians—all of whom are influential in shaping public policy and opinion. The platform has also proved crucial for those organizing protests in places like India, Nigeria, and Argentina, and has provided an avenue for those living in highly controlled societies like Saudi Arabia to voice criticism of their governments.

Jason Pielemeier, executive director of the Global Network Initiative, says Musk’s goal to build Twitter’s user base to more than a billion people could also affect his willingness to battle it out with foreign governments to keep content on the platform.

Although they may not represent a huge share of Twitter’s revenue stream right now, countries like Turkey, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan, which have very large, increasingly online populations, are all attractive markets as the company looks to grow its revenue and increase its user base, according to Pielemeier. But all of those countries have had arguments with Twitter specifically or with social media companies more broadly, he says. Last year, the Nigerian government ordered all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block Twitter after the platform deleted a tweet from the country’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, for violating its policies. The government lifted the ban only after Twitter agreed to open an office in the country and pay local taxes.

In India, Twitter’s third largest market, the company filed a case earlier this year to contest the government’s order to remove individual pieces of content as well as whole accounts that the government considers a risk to India’s security or sovereignty.

But Raman Jit Singh Chima, senior international counsel and Asia Pacific policy director at Access Now, worries that Twitter under Musk may not continue with the lawsuit. (In his August countersuit against Twitter, Musk cited the lawsuit in India as a threat to the company’s presence in its third largest market.) “It would be a vindication of a very problematic, unconstitutional set of actions by the Indian government,” he says. “It also sends a signal to the global tech industry, saying ‘Back off, don’t try to do more.’”

The recent cuts to Twitter’s staff, which have impacted the teams that handle policy and content moderation, could also send the message to remaining staff not to “rock the boat, or ask for more resources or more local language experts,” says Chima.

Musk’s sole ownership of the platform is likely to make it particularly hard for Twitter to push back on government requests. “Sometimes companies are able to engage with governments and explain that they can't just do everything the government wants because they have this legal and fiduciary obligation to our investors,” says Pielemeier. Under Musk, Twitter cannot use that excuse. Earlier this week, Musk said he planned to set up a content moderation council, perhaps similar to the Meta Oversight Board, which Pielemeier says may help him distance himself from being seen as the sole arbiter of speech on the platform.

But this may not be enough when Musk has many other business interests that could act as convenient pressure points for foreign governments. Mishi Choudhary, general counsel at Virtru and former legal director at the Software Freedom Law Center, says that the government of India is “notorious” for finding ways to pressure companies. “I would not be surprised, if it’s in the form of taxes or permits, if they don’t try to at least use that as leverage to bring down some content,” she says.

Earlier this year, Starlink announced that it was being forced to refund all preorders for its product in India because it had not yet received the necessary licenses to operate in the country (previous reports found that the company’s services in the northeastern state of Assam were expensive and unreliable anyway). In October, the Economic Times reported that SpaceX was seeking permits from the Department of Telecommunications to launch Starlink’s satellite broadband. Tesla also halted its plans to enter India in May over import tariffs.

Musk’s involvement with Starlink, which would be considered an ISP, could be of particular note here. “It’s not impossible to foresee a situation in the future where one of Elon Musk’s companies is asked to block another one of his companies because the government has chosen to issue the blocking order,” says Pielemeier.

Even Musk’s quest to limit bots on the platform could rub up against the interests of one his own backers: Saudi Arabia. Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, through his Kingdom Holding Company, is now the second largest investor in Twitter. The Saudi government, which went so far as to infiltrate Twitter to spy on dissidents, has long used an army of bots and fake accounts to control conversation about the kingdom.

“The sole focus is to control Twitter’s trending algorithm in Saudi Arabia and force public opinion using bot accounts,” says Wajeeh Lion, an openly gay Saudi activist now living in exile in the US, who has been targeted on Twitter by the Saudi government. “So as a boss, if Elon Musk is serious about removing these Twitter bots, then the Saudi government is going to take a huge hit.”

Abdullah Alaoudh, research director at the nonprofit Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), says these accounts often swarm those critical of the kingdom, reporting their content. “If you’re saying something critical of the government, when the bots report it, they would say, ‘This person is saying something racist about the nation, about Arabs,’” says Alaoudh. He worries Twitter under Musk may be more liable to take content or accounts flagged by Saudi networks down.

But even acquiescing to government censorship could be a threat to Musk’s goals to grow Twitter, says Kian Vesteinsson, senior research analyst for tech and democracy at Freedom House, a nonprofit research and advocacy group focused on democracy and political freedoms. “Protecting the users of Twitter is critical to the success of the platform” says Kian. “If people feel unsafe, if they feel that they are vulnerable to censorship, or more likely to see their user data handed over to governments that may abuse it, people will leave.”

But Choudhary worries that Musk may not be deeply considering these issues—at least not yet.

“I don’t see any indication from Musk that he actually cares about anyone other than the US audience and US content at the moment,” says Choudhary. “Users in repressive regimes will find ways to connect otherwise if they feel their security and safety are in the hands of an amateur.”