Responses to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter

Trolls are descending upon Twitter en masse even though the platform’s new boss has not yet changed its content moderation policies.

Last week, the world’s richest man, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, finalised his deal to take over Twitter.

He immediately fired the CEO and CFO and there are also rumours of mass lay offs planned for the near future.

Musk has been calling for greater rights to free speech on the social media app and there are fears that former president Donald Trump will be allowed back onto the platform, as well as trolls.

Now Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, Yoel Roth, has revealed that within hours of the leadership change, trolls have tried to take advantage of the situation.

“Over the last 48 hours, we’ve seen a small number of accounts post a ton of Tweets that include slurs and other derogatory terms,” Roth tweeted. “To give you a sense of scale: More than 50,000 Tweets repeatedly using a particular slur came from just 300 accounts.”

Roth warned that most of the accounts were “inauthentic” — likely bots or fake accounts — and those accounts had subsequently been banned.

“We’ve taken action to ban the users involved in this trolling campaign – and are going to continue working to address this in the days to come to make Twitter safe and welcoming for everyone,” he wrote.

In a tweet on Friday, Musk addressed fevered speculation of mass reinstatements of banned accounts and revealed a decision had not yet been made.

“Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints,” he wrote. “No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.”

In a message to advertisers on Thursday, Musk insisted the platform “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences” and that Twitter must be “warm and welcoming to all”.

However, Musk is a self-confessed “free speech absolutist” and several people have already made the decision to quit the platform.

After the takeover, Musk made a post that simply said “the bird is freed”.  This caused many to worry that the company’s moderation policies would be thrown out the window.

Musk completed the on-again, off-again, USS44 billion takeover deal late Thursday.

Musk signalled the deal was on track this week by changing his Twitter profile to “Chief Twit” and posting a video of himself walking into the company’s California headquarters carrying a sink. “Let that sink in!” he quipped.

https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/other-industries/huge-twitter-change-within-hours-of-elon-musks-takeover/news-story/66ded47d7643e42180921a0d18fb860e

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