Elon Musk criticized Twitter executives

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Two days after striking a deal to buy Twitter, Elon Musk used his powerful Twitter account to elevate conservative criticism of two social media company executives, unnerving a workforce already worried about how he will balance his abrasive style of social media and his embrace of free speech. with his management of the company.

On Wednesday, he tweeted a meme to his more than 86 million followers featuring the face of Twitter’s senior counsel, Vijaya Gadde, which appeared to suggest the company’s decisions are affected by leftist bias. The tweet came hours after criticizing a policy move Gadde made in 2020, and was in response to an earlier tweet from a political podcast host calling her the company’s top censorship advocate.

Twitter users were quick to call on Musk to fire Gadde or used racist language to describe her. Gadde was born in India and immigrated to the United States as a child. One user said she would go down in history as a terrible person.

Twitter accepted a $44 billion takeover bid from Elon Musk on April 25. Why did he want to buy the social media giant? (Video: Hadley Green, Julie Yoon/The Washington Post)

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Musks’ tweets have the singular power to unleash mobs against people with much lower profiles in 280 characters or less. While Musk is banking his $44 billion takeover of one of the world’s most influential social platforms on the promise of restoring free speech there, his rhetoric is at odds with how his supporters have weaponized Twitter, tricking people into locking down their personal profiles and public information.

Musk actually used Twitter as his slingshot to go after critics, said April Glaser, senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. It is not surprising that he then wants to have greater control over this sling.

Musk’s power to unleash his followers in this way alarmed some Twitter employees, who expressed concern at a company town hall on Monday and in interviews about being mentioned in tweets by their future boss. It’s unusual for a new owner to make public comments about future employees, let alone publicly criticize their performance or past decisions.

The terms of its deal to acquire Twitter allow the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla to tweet about its acquisition as long as those tweets don’t disparage the company or any of its representatives.

A person familiar with the negotiation process, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe confidential matters, said the so-called disparagement clause is only applicable when Musk tweets or comments on the deal itself, and therefore negative comments on Twitter outside of which do not violate the terms.

Twitter declined to comment for this article. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted Wednesday afternoon with a note of reassurance.

Proud of our people who continue to do the job with focus and urgency despite the noise, he wrote.

I took on this job to change Twitter for the better, course correct where we need to, and strengthen the service. Proud of our people who continue to do the job with focus and urgency despite the noise.

— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 27, 2022

Gadde and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.

Musk sees Twitter as the de facto public square, a place where rules should be kept to a minimum. Twitter employees, however, have spent years developing sophisticated protocols to control its platform for hate speech and other rule-breaking content, including recently investing in tools to limit online harassment. Today, the company is being acquired by the richest person in the world, whose views are fundamentally at odds with those of much of the workforce.

In an interview with 60 Minutes in 2018, Musk said Twitter is a war zone. If someone is going to jump into a warzone, it’s like okay, you’re in the arena, let’s go.

More recently, after launching his hostile takeover bid, Musk acknowledged that content moderation was unclear.

Well, I think we would be wrong about the, if in doubt, let the talk, let it be. But if it’s a gray area, I’d say the tweet exists, he told a TED talk. But obviously, in a case where there’s maybe a lot of controversy, you’re not necessarily going to promote that tweet. I’m not saying I have all the answers here.

Social media experts say a simplistic view of free speech, which essentially means few or no rules and restrictions, ignores that such a freewheeling environment could lead to violent or harassing attacks that can actually prevent people from participating in the online conversation.

When that energy weighs on you, it’s terrifying. It’s terrifying for you, your friends and family, said Syracuse University communications professor Whitney Phillips. The fact that he is so quiet and creates a chilling effect for others who are afraid to speak up. If you want to talk about the dangers and challenges to freedom of expression, that’s central.

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Musk’s response to the tweet about Gadde, his first criticism of a specific Twitter executive’s decision since buying the company, underscored how quickly his followers can be turned on by a single tweet.

Musk did not specifically name or label Gadde. But he responded to a tweet from political podcast host Saagar Enjeti in which she was named, drawing more than 400,000 likes, retweets and replies to Musks’ post.

Vijaya Gadde, the leading Twitter censorship advocate who celebrated the world on the Joe Rogans podcast and censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, is very upset with the @elonmusk takeover, Enjeti tweeted, in connection with a Politico story on the subject.

During the 2020 presidential election, Twitter temporarily blocked a New York Post article about Democratic candidate Joe Bidens’ son Hunter, which it said violated a policy against posting hacked material. The company didn’t suspend the entire news organization, but did stop it from tweeting for a while.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testified before Congress in 2020 that the company erred and assumed the article violated its policy on pirated materials, which it later changed.

On Tuesday, Musk tweeted, Suspending a major news agency’s Twitter account for publishing a true story was obviously incredibly inappropriate.

Twitter employees publicly defended Gadde against the attacks on Wednesday morning. @vijaya, first shot of empathy, tweeted Lea Kissner, the company’s privacy engineering manager.

Enjeti defended her tweet about Gadde because she is a public figure who appeared on the popular Joe Rogans podcast and denied being responsible for how people treat her online.

Musk’s response on Tuesday to Enjeti’s tweet raises questions about how he will handle a workforce already suspicious of the billionaire and his intentions.

Also troubling for some workers, Musk responded to another tweet on Tuesday that drew attention to Twitter’s Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker, who previously held a high-ranking position at the FBI.

Online influencer Mike Cernovich tweeted at Musk about Baker’s role in a case that drew fire from conservatives, saying, @elonmusk is who’s inside Twitter. Musk replied: Sounds pretty bad.

Baker declined to comment on the exchange. In a post, Cernovich said: I’m surprised by the reaction to my tweet, which was a discussion of a news story.

Musk launched a hostile takeover on Twitter two weeks ago. On Monday, the two parties announced that they had reached an agreement for an acquisition that should be finalized in three to six months, according to the executives.

Why did Elon Musk buy Twitter?

Musk has used the platform to criticize Twitter’s decisions in the past, particularly on topics related to free speech and banning the accounts of individuals who violate Twitter’s rules. Gadde is the senior executive most responsible for these decisions.

The vitriol hitting Twitter employees is part of a years-long pattern of online harassment that has already ensnared government officials, corporate whistleblowers, technologists, journalists and at one point, Thai cave rescue volunteer Musk called a pedo, leading to a libel suit. . (Musk was ultimately not responsible in the lawsuit.)

Last October, Musk took aim at Duke University professor Missy Cummings when she was appointed to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as an adviser. Musks’ tweet alleging she was grossly biased sparked a flurry of personal attacks and misogynistic harassment. Cummings deactivated his Twitter account soon after.

Twitter employees face a reality they’ve long feared: Elon Musk as owner

I am increasingly concerned about my personal safety with people who are clearly not capable of rational, reasoned thought, she wrote in a LinkedIn post two months ago.

Also last year, Musk tweeted a link to the Wikipedia page of National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy, a critic of Tesla’s failure to adopt certain safety measures. But repeated attempts to edit the Homendys page seemed to prompt Wikipedia to lock it down.

Elon Musk buys Twitter for around $44 billion

Others say they have been targeted for expressing skepticism about Musk. Earlier this year, Brianna Wu, executive director of Rebellion Pac and software engineer, criticized Musks’ plan to send Starlink devices to Ukraine, tweeting that the devices weren’t working based on the coverage she had read in technical publications. (A Ukrainian official told the Washington Post in March that Starlink antennas have proven to be very effective.)

Wu, who has previously been the target of threats during a massive online harassment campaign targeting female game developers known as GamerGate, said his Twitter account had turned into a sea of ​​personal attacks. . Rather than disagreeing with the posts, Wu said Musks’ online supporters are focused on reputation attacks.

Elon Musk fans are honestly some of the worst stalkers I’ve ever encountered on the internet, Wu said in an interview. So the argument isn’t that you’re wrong about that and that’s why. It’s that you’re a fraud and a terrible person, and you have no right to exist.

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