Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter has been called “a long-feared reality”.
CNN quipped that, “Elon Musk bought a $44 billion fixer-upper, and he’s not wasting any time gutting the joint.” They called him a “wrecking ball”.
Over the weekend, Musk made some pivotal decisions, among them, to fire Twitter’s top executives and 25% of the staff, pretty much placing him in total control and turning the giant media platform into an autocracy.
He announced that users may now have to pay for Twitter’s blue-check verification stamp — a feature that helps users distinguish which accounts are authentic and weeds out at least some of the fake accounts behind which hide the worst abusers and hate merchants.
But what raised the most concern is that he called the New York Times “fake news” and tweeted an obviously untrue conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi.
It’s worth recalling that Musk styles himself as a “free speech absolutist” and to prove it, he has reinstated controversial figures who had been previously banned due to their tweeted hate speech, fake news or conspiracy theories. He has already reversed the restrictions placed on Kanye West and it’s rumored that he might also reverse the ban on former President Donald Trump.
Some celebrities have quit the platform and commented on their reasons. Powerful Hollywood director and producer, Shonda Rhimes tweeted to her nearly 2 million followers Saturday afternoon, two days after Musk closed his $44 billion deal to purchase the service. The “Grey’s Anatomy” creator wrote, “Not hanging around for whatever Elon has planned. Bye!”
Tea Leoni, an actor best known for starring on the CBS political drama “Madam Secretary,” tweeted to her roughly 124,000 followers Saturday: “Hi everyone. I’m coming off Twitter today—let’s see where we are when the dust settles. Today the dust has revealed too much hate, too much in the wrong direction.”
CNN asks, “why should you care” about what Musk does, especially if you’re not on Twitter? The answer is that even though “It is barely a tenth the size of Facebook…Twitter has always had an outsize influence over the worlds of media, politics and tech.” Furthermore, it’s the politicians’ favorite way of communicating with their constituents and prospective voters and therefore shapes and determines who governs.
Recall that Donald Trump tweeted all important news directly to his followers via Twitter, breaking with the practice of press briefings and any sort of verification of the facts that he spewed at all hours of day and night, completely unfiltered even by common sense (covfefe anyone?).
Musks’ tweet on the first day that he took over, “The bird is freed” alarmed some who fear that the platform will turn into a free-for-all of unrestrained hate speech and conspiracy theories, and already some influential conservative figures saw spikes in new followers, according to data from digital investigations company Memetica.
Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, gained more than 18,000 new followers in the last 24 hours. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado), meanwhile, gained 18,679 new followers during the same period. And more than 3,700 accounts started following conservative media personality Candace Owens. Thousands of the accounts that have followed the far-right figures were new to Twitter, created shortly before the deal closed, according to Memetica.
Meanwhile, as reported by the New York Times, data from social media analytics firm Social Blade showed that accounts for progressive politicians and celebrities including former President Barack Obama, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow were losing followers Friday.
The ADL Center on Extremism said it identified a coordinated effort to spread antisemitic content on Twitter following Musk’s takeover. In the course of 24 hours, the ADL said more than 1,200 tweets and retweets propagated antisemitic memes.
The ADL’s Jessica Guynn wrote,“This strategic spread of hateful content on @Twitter warrants concern for how extremists view potential changes to Twitter’s content rules,”
If Musk continues in this vein, Twitter may just turn into the premier outlet for far-right propaganda on social platforms as Fox News and Newsmax dominate their own niches.
