SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says the company won’t comply with government requests to block access to Russian media outlets via its satellite-based Starlink internet service.
“Starlink has been told by some governments (not Ukraine) to block Russian news sources. We will not do so unless at gunpoint,” Musk says. “Sorry to be a free speech absolutist.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—and its state media’s attempts to spread disinformation about the conflict—has led to increased scrutiny of publishers associated with the Russian government. That’s why Twitter and TikTok have both decided to label content affiliated with those outlets.
But there’s a difference between applying labels to such content, which is supposed to help people be more informed, and blocking access to that content on the networking level. Musk’s tweet makes it clear that SpaceX doesn’t have any interest in crossing that line with Starlink.
The company is dealing with more than just requests to block access to Russia’s state media, however, with Musk saying that “some Starlink terminals near conflict areas were being jammed for several hours at a time.” Some governments make requests; others jam signals.
Musk says that Starlink’s “latest software update bypasses the jamming.” (He also says that “in a way, this is free QA haha,” which might be the most nonchalant response to signal jamming in a conflict zone to date.) SpaceX will continue to combat these efforts to interfere with Starlink.
