Elon Musk Is Tweeting Through a Tide of Criticism

Under pressure and in the face of a wave of criticism, Elon Musk has increasingly turned to his favorite release van: Twitter.

As of Saturday, Mr. Musk, the richest man in the world and Twitter’s new owner, has embarked on a tweet so large he is posting more than 750 times this month, or more than 25 times a day, according to an analysis from digital investigative firm Memetica. That number will increase from about 13 times a day in April, when Mr agree to buy Twitter for the first time.

His recent tweets have covered an increasingly broad range of topics. Over the past four days, Mr Musk, 51, has invited comedian Kathy Griffin and linked up with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey on the platform. He makes masturbation jokes aim at an opponent – and much smaller – social media platforms. He posted, then deleted, a catchy tweet with a quote from a white nationalist. And he defends his ownership of Twitter, including why he has lay off 50% of the company’s employees and why people shouldn’t impersonate others on the service.

Overall, Mr Musk, who described himself in his Twitter profile as “Chief Twit” before changing the description to “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator”, has tweeted more than 105 times since Monday. Six, mostly about Twitter, according to a tally. by Memetica.

Mr. Musk tweeted on Sunday in a Twitter discussion thread, including a meme from an absurd conspiracy theory suggested that the birds were actually spies of the robots. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Musk is under intense scrutiny 11 days after completing a $44 billion deal for Twitter, the largest leveraged acquisition in the history of a technology company. On Friday, he cut about 3,700 of the company’s 7,500 employees, saying he had no choice because Twitter was losing money. 4 million dollars a day. At the same time, he found himself get caught up in debates about the same content made it difficult for other social media companies, including how to give people a way to speak up without spreading misinformation and malicious speech.

Mr. Musk had to Delay the implementation of a subscription product that will allow people to bookmark the check on their Twitter profile. Advertisers have pause their spending on Twitter because of concerns that Mr. Musk will relax the content rules on the platform. And the midterm elections are set to be a test of how a neat little Twitter works in catching upsetting posts and misinformation about election and election results.

In a report Announced Monday, researchers at Tufts University’s Fletcher School said early signs on Mr Musk’s Twitter “show that the platform is headed in the wrong direction under his leadership – at one point in time.” especially inconvenient for American democracy.”

The researchers said they tracked reports of civil war, election fraud, citizen voter control, and allegations of pedophilia and grooming on Twitter from July to October. “After Musk took over, the quality of the conversation declined” as many extremists and disinformation peddlers tested the platform’s boundaries.

Amid the uproar, Musk’s behavior on Twitter suggests that he intended to simply post through it. And while he’s always been a prolific tweeter, he’s raised the bar in recent days.

On Friday, Mr Musk, who has more than 114 million followers on Twitter, suggested a “fusion name and shame“Against brands that have stopped advertising on the platform. He says he’s done everything he can to appease advertisers but activists have turned against him to get brands to drop spending on Twitter.

At the same time, the billionaire was also embroiled in a battle over his plan to charge Twitter users $8 a month for a subscription service, Twitter Blue, that would tick anyone who has paid. Free checkmarks for celebrities with company verified identities, including celebrities, politicians, and journalists, as a way to protect against impersonation.

Critics are unhappy about Mr. Musk’s plan to monetize checkmarks, saying it could lead to the spread of misinformation and fraud on the platform. In protest, several Twitter accounts with checkmarks changed their display names and photos to match Mr. Musk’s account over the weekend, a move intended to illustrate why it would be confusing. if someone can buy the check mark.

On Sunday, Mr Musk announced that he would permanent suspension any account that “engaged in impersonation without explicitly specifying as “imitation”.” Billionaire, who was previously Criticize Twitter when it gets banned forever user, then banned Ms Griffin, who was posing as him on the service.

Mr. Musk, who has called himself “tyranny of free speech‘ said Daphne Keller, director of the Foundational Regulation Program at Stanford’s Center for Cyber ​​Policy.

“His ideas were incoherent for a while,” she said.

On Sunday evening, Mr. Musk replied to a tweet there is a quote from a white nationalist, before deleting the post and moving on to arguing with Mr Dorsey via Birdwatch, a feature that allows community members to add context to tweets they deem misleading. Mr. Musk, who has previously praised the feature, suggested renaming the feature “Community Notes”.

“Community Notes is the most boring Facebook name ever,” replied Mr. Dorsey, who owns 1 billion dollars of shares on Mr. Musk’s Twitter.

Then on Monday, Mr Musk suggested he might go after civil society groups and activists who are pushing to boycott advertisers on Twitter, when he responded to a commentator. right-wing argument that “we do“There are grounds to sue. Legal experts say organizing boycotts for political and social purposes is protected under the First Amendment.

Musk also tweeted that everyone should vote Republican in the midterm elections on Tuesday. “Shared power limits worst bipartisan excess, so I recommend you vote for Congress Republican, assuming the President is a Democrat,” he tweeted. He later posted that he was an independent with “pure Democratic voting history up to this year.”

He soon continued. Musk’s attention is focused on Mastodon, a Twitter competitor that has gained traction over the past 10 days. Fool the name Mastodon, he made some crude jokes about masturbation – then deleted those posts an hour later.

Tiffany Hsu contribution report.