Ding Ding Ding – We Have An Emergency
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #128 ❤️
We’re bringing an emergency mid-week newsletter episode to you – Twitter officially belongs to Elon Musk.
What’s the damage?
Let’s get into it.
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#1 - The Build Up
After months trying to get it followed by months of trying to get out of it, and a weird video where he turns up at headquarters with a kitchen sink under his arm, it’s official, Musk owns Twitter. His bio now reads – “Head Twit”. Certainly.
He’s apparently fired a load of people, celebrities and public figures are leaving the platform in droves, and everyone else is getting down to business, in a predictably chaotic way.
He promised advertisers last week that he wouldn’t turn twitter into a “right-wing hell hole” with the following statement:
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square,” Musk wrote. “Where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence. There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far-right wing and far left-wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”
#2 - Musk’s First Tweets
Talking about that great danger that social media would split into a right-wing echo chamber…
One of Musk’s first tweets as “head twit” was sharing a link to a far-right conspiracy theory about the US speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
Actions speak louder than words, it seems.
He linked to an opinion piece that baselessly claimed the House Speaker’s husband was drunk at the time of last week’s attack and “in a dispute with a male prostitute” noting that in his opinion it seems pretty credible.
This commentary pretty much sums it up…
The piece appeared in the Santa Monica Observer, which has been “described by fact-checkers as a low-credibility source favouring the extreme right.” (According to New York magazine, they also previously claimed that Clinton was dead and played by a body double during a 2016 debate with Donald Trump – normal!) Not surprisingly the article had cited no sources, and the author said his evidence-free assertions were “IMHO,” i.e. “in my humble opinion.”
He also deleted the tweet later, but not before inspiring a lot of pretty uncool responses from, you guessed it, the far-right echo chamber.
#3 - Hate Speech Up 500%
According to the Washington Post, hate speech has rocketed in the aftermath of Musk’s twitter takeover.
The Network Contagion Research Institute, a research group that analyzes social-media content to predict emerging threats, said that use of the N-word on Twitter increased by nearly 500% in the 12 hours right after the deal was finalised and Musk was officially owner.
The newspaper also noted that several online trolling accounts called on others to use racist language in the aftermath of the deal. For example:
"Elon now controls twitter. Unleash the racial slurs. K---S AND N-----S," said one account, using slurs for Jewish and Black people, per the outlet.
"I can freely express how much I hate n-----s … now, thank you elon," another said, The Post reported.
Twitter was also flooded with anti LGBTQ+ tweets, with some actively testing existing rules from the moderation policies to see what would happen.
Musk noted that they will be setting up a content moderation council with “widely diverse viewpoints” and that no decisions will come until they meet. Wonder who will be on it?
#4 - Mass Exodus
One on side, will a mass of people are joining and increasing activity, another mass are leaving.
Shonda Rhimes up and out-ed as soon as Musk arrived, tweeting simply “Not hanging around for whatever Elon has planned. Bye.”
Some, like Josh Gad, are debating leaving, citing what had happened so far on the platform since the takeover as being a worrying sign of things to come, saying he didn’t sign up to be a part of a platform for hate speech without consequences.
Others are calling for users to stay and fight against hate speech, because if you leave, how can you make it better?
#5 - Golden Parachutes
According to compensation data company Equilar, top Twitter executives fired by Musk after his takeover will collectively receive more than $120 million.
Apparently the following payouts will be given:
Former chief executive Parag Agrawal - $57.4 million
Former chief financial officer Ned Segal - $44.5 million
Former head of legal policy, trust and safety Vijaya Gadde - $20 million
Chief customer officer Sarah Personette - $19.2 million
Sure, it’s hard to lose a job you’re passionate about, and for the company you worked for to become an absolute disaster and threat to democracy, but at this price….
Either way, if you’re going to get fired and there’s nothing you can do about it – millions of dollars is a pretty nice compensation.
Brave & Heart over and out.
We don’t have all the answers on how to solve this Twitter mess, but we’ve still got some pretty good advice for you.