There’s been a flurry of news this week and reportedly a good bit of concern among Twitter employees since Elon Musk became Twitter’s largest shareholder.
Employees are now telling Reuters that they are panicking that the arrival of Musk will mean they won’t be able to censor people like they’ve grown accustomed to doing.
REUTERS – News of Tesla (TSLA.O) Chief Executive Elon Musk taking a board seat at Twitter (TWTR.N) has some Twitter employees panicking over the future of the social media firm’s ability to moderate content, company insiders told Reuters.
Despite Twitter’s reiteration this week that the board does not make policy decisions, four Twitter employees who spoke with Reuters said they were concerned about Musk’s ability to influence the company’s policies on abusive users and harmful content.
With Musk on the board, the employees said his views on moderation could weaken years-long efforts to make Twitter a place of healthy discourse, and might allow trolling and mob attacks to flourish.
The employees, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, point to Musk’s history of using Twitter to attack critics. In 2018, Musk came under fire for accusing a British diver who had helped rescue children trapped in a cave in Thailand of being a pedophile.
Musk won a defamation case brought by the diver in 2019.
When asked for comment, a Twitter spokesperson repeated a statement from Tuesday that the board “plays an important advisory and feedback role across the entirety of our service,” but daily operations and decisions are made by Twitter’s management and employees.
“Twitter is committed to impartiality in the development and enforcement of its policies and rules,” the spokesperson said.
Some employees that Reuters spoke to were not so sure about the company’s commitment to this.
“I find it hard to believe (the board) doesn’t have influence,” said one employee. “If that’s the case, why would Elon want a board seat?”
Twitter is committed to impartiality? Yeah right, and superman is real.
Seriously, what a blatant lie. A quick dive back into the 2020 election proves it, where Twitter used their power and might to protect Joe Biden from very damaging information about his son’s business dealings.
Elon Musk tweeted this photo this morning of the next board meeting at Twitter:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2022
It’ll be interesting to see what Elon does on the board, but hopefully all of this ends with him buying Twitter and getting rid of their fascist censorship.