Sat 05 November 2022:
Elon Musk has come under fire from US President Joe Biden for buying Twitter, claiming that the microblogging service spreads “lies across the world.”
According to Fox Business, Biden made these remarks during a fundraiser for Lauren Underwood and Sean Casten, two Democratic congressmen from Illinois.
“Elon Musk goes out and buys an outlet that sends a” that spews lies all across the world. There are no editors anymore in America. There are no editors,” he told the gathering.
“How do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake? What is at stake? So there’s a lot going on, a lot going on. But we have an enormous opportunity, enormous opportunity,” Biden added.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters earlier Friday that Biden has been “outspoken about the importance of social media platforms continuing to take steps to reduce hate speech and misinformation.”
“That belief extends to Twitter, it extends to Facebook and any other social media platforms where users can spread misinformation,” she continued.
Shortly before news of his acquisition broke last week, Musk wrote an open letter attempting to reassure advertisers that he does not want the social network to become a “free-for-all hellscape.”
He tweeted Friday morning that Twitter has seen a “massive drop in revenue,” which he blamed on “activist groups pressuring advertisers,” and later addressed the layoffs tweeting that “unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.”
Departing employees were offered three months of severance, he wrote.
Meanwhile, a group of more than 40 organisations has sent an open letter calling on Twitter’s top 20 largest advertisers to stop financing the company, claiming the platform is “inundated with hate and disinformation”.
Amid calls to bring back on Twitter former US President Donald Trump, Musk has announced plans to create a content moderation council.
The Tesla CEO said that Twitter will not allow anyone who was de-platformed for violating its rules “back on platform until we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks”.
“Twitter will not censor accurate information about anything,” he tweeted on Friday.
Twitter, which has fired about half of its workforce under Musk along with axing key content moderation teams right before the November 8 midterm elections, said that its “core moderation capabilities” are still in place.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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