A Timeline of Elon Musk and His Destruction of Twitter
December 27, 2022
Musk promised Twitter’s advertisers on October 27, the day he finalized his acquisition of the social media site, that he would make sure it was “warm and friendly to everybody” and not “a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be spoken with no consequences.” Based on his plans to lay off employees and prior statements favoring free speech above content regulation, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has alarmed advertisers who use it largely to market their brands rather of products.
Some academics claim that after Musk’s takeover, the use of racial slurs on Twitter increased.
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, claimed that on the two days leading up to October 29, a small number of users posted “a ton of tweets that include slurs and other nasty phrases.”
Around the same time, pro basketball player Kyrie Irving, who had been suspended by the Brooklyn Nets after refusing to retract his tweet containing a link to an antisemitic movie, and supporters of the rapper Y, a friend of Elon
Musk, whose account had been temporarily suspended for tweets about “the Jews” flooded Twitter with antisemitic messages.
Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, had another tweet removed from Twitter on November 4 for breaking its Terms of Service.
Musk has drawn unfavorable comparisons to Trump as a result of his management of Twitter, which has been frequently characterized in the media as bringing about “chaos.” Now this does not mean he’s doing all bad, he has many great visions for twitter, like feature improvements.
Musk’s promises to quickly upgrade Twitter’s services have been eclipsed by the controversies surrounding his hiring and moderation practices. Musk announced in a post on November 5 that Twitter would soon allow users to attach lengthy texts to tweets, “ending the farce” of screenshots.
Musk promised “creator monetization for all forms of material” as a follow-up. This would be amazing as creators are planned to get more pay from basic stuff like commenting and posting more actively.
Later, he attacked the service’s infamously subpar search feature. Musk, whose profile page on the platform portrays him as the “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator,” wrote, “That will also get a lot better pronto.” Showing that there is at least motivation behind the topic.