Elon Musk wants to re-regulate the handling of controversial content. At the same time, he pits many users against himself by spreading a conspiracy theory.
ARCHIVE – Elon Musk has taken over the short messaging service Twitter. aAdrien Fillon / ZUMA Press Wire / dp
San Francisco–Tech billionaire Elon Musk is starting to put his mark on the online service after he took over Twitter. Among other things, he wants to create a new body to deal with controversial content. Before such a board meets, there will be no major decisions on content policy or account recovery, he tweeted.
On Sunday, the man didn’t just cause a stir with his entry into the Twitter headquarters. Users criticized a post by Elon Musk that he placed under a Hillary Clinton tweet. Under a Washington Post article detailing the right-wing radicalization of Nacy Pelosi’s husband striker Paul Pelosi on Saturday, Musk wrote: “There is a small chance that there is more to this story than there is. you look”. a website known for fake news, which now peddles the theory that Nancy Pelosi’s husband may have gotten drunk the night of the attack and had a fight with a homosexual prostitute at his home. The site was temporarily unavailable.
On Twitter, users warned that Elon Musk was already using his power to spread crude conspiracy theories. American politicians accused Musk of sharing homophobic and conspiracy theories and of contributing to the destabilizing agenda of Republican democracy. Musk did not respond to the allegations at first, but then deleted the tweet.
Musk had previously promised in a tweet that everything should be better with him on Twitter. He campaigned for free speech: “Anyone who has been blocked for minor reasons and doubts will be released from Twitter jail.” He was also willing to remove the 280-character limit on tweets. He also thought it would be a good idea if users could choose between different versions of the service: “Like an age rating in the cinema”.
According to media reports, job cuts should also be launched immediately on Twitter. Financial service Bloomberg wrote that Musk took software developers from the electric car maker he runs to Twitter headquarters to review the platform’s program code. Business Insider reported that Musk appeared on internal profiles titled CEO. It had previously been reported that he wanted to take on the post in addition to his main job at Tesla and his space company SpaceX, among others.
Many changes are only known through media reports
Musk completed the $ 44 billion acquisition of the online service on Thursday. Since then, there has been little official information on what’s happening on Twitter. The sacking of top managers around the former boss Parag Agrawal was initially known only through media reports. Musk has yet to give details of his plans for Twitter’s future. He could go on like this: with the purchase, Musk takes Twitter from the bag and therefore no longer has to provide information on the development of the business.
Musk had often criticized Twitter for restricting free speech too much. This has raised concerns that there may be more hate and hate speech on Twitter under his control. The formation of the Content Council may now signal a more cautious course.
More tweets containing racist hate speech
Observers noted an increase in tweets containing racist hate speech after the completion of the Twitter acquisition. According to Twitter, around 50,000 of these tweets came from just 300 accounts and are fighting.
Musk also responded to a complaint from the right-wing political spectrum that Twitter was being censored in the “left” sense. “I’ll check it out,” he wrote. Twitter shouldn’t favor either side. The service has been following a strict policy against false election information for years, and Trump supporters in particular speak of censorship. Musk recently showed political solidarity with the Republican Party, which is still dominated by Trump. US President Joe Biden’s Democrats have become a “party of division and hatred,” he tweeted in May.
Note on transparency: The report was corrected and updated on November 1, 2022 at 7:00 am
