Twitter: Elon Musk makes false accusations and deletes his tweet
The new head of the social network reacted to the harassment of Nancy Pelosi’s husband on Saturday, October 29, which conveyed a conspiracy theory.
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FAmid outcry, Twitter’s newest owner Elon Musk on Sunday (Oct 30) deleted a tweet by House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi that fueled rumors of an assault by her husband, as his recent acquisition of the platform raises fears of renewed misinformation about the app. . “Appearances are unlikely to be deceiving,” the billionaire tweeted to his 123 million subscribers early Sunday morning, which was later deleted.
His post referred to the attack on Paul Pelosi and linked to an article from the conservative Santa Monica Observer website that published unconfirmed reports of the attack. The newspaper writes that this media has already published conspiracy theories and false information in the past Los Angeles Times. Paul Pelosi was attacked in his home on Friday by a hammer-wielding man who was actually looking for Nancy Pelosi. In particular, he suffered a fractured skull and had to be hospitalized.
Elon Musk has responded to former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s tweet criticizing Republican Party conspiracy theories. “The Republican Party and its spokespeople now routinely promote hate speech and completely insane conspiracy theories,” the former US secretary of state condemned. “It is shocking but not surprising and the result is violence. US President Joe Biden also condemned the attack by Paul Pelosi this weekend and linked it to the results of disinformation ten days before the midterm elections.
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Musk, a defender of freedom of expression
Elon Musk’s tweet caused a lot of comments and criticism on the social network. “Clinton: Conspiracy theories are responsible for killing people and we shouldn’t give them visibility. Twitter owner: So have you heard of this conspiracy theory? Seth Masket, professor of political science at the University of Denver, said Elon Musk’s tweet was inappropriate for the social network.
Former UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye, mocked the billionaire’s various caps: “The Elon troll should warn the head of Twitter to retract (this tweet). Twitter did not immediately respond to Agence France-Presse’s query. Self-proclaimed defender of freedom of expression, the capricious boss of Tesla and SpaceX has repeatedly confirmed that he wants to make Twitter a kind of digital agora where all opinions are freely expressed.
He advocated very strict moderation of content, but focused most of his attacks on the supposed censorship of right-wing and far-right voices. However, trying to calm advertisers, Elon Musk promised that after buying Twitter, the social network will not turn into a “hell” and will provide it with a “content moderation board”. According to a company official, in the days since the takeover, the bluebird network is already under coordinated attacks by “trolls” posting hateful content to test its moderation policy.
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Yoel Roth, the platform’s integrity manager, said on Saturday: “Over the past 48 hours, we’ve seen a small number of accounts send out a large number of tweets containing evil and other offensive language.” “To give you an idea of the scale: more than 50,000 tweets about a specific insult came from just 300 accounts,” he added, noting that the vast majority were fake accounts. Yoel Roth reiterated on Twitter that “hate speech has no place” because its moderation policy “has not changed” and the company is “taking steps to stop any organized effort to convince people otherwise.”
