Shonda Rhimes says ‘bye’ to Twitter after Musk takeover

Musk, a self-explained no cost-speech absolutist, accomplished his $44 billion takeover of the social media platform on Thursday and instantly fired leading executives he experienced criticized for remaining way too suppressive. 

Though he was swift to reassure advertisers on Thursday that the platform would not grow to be a “free-for-all hellscape,” not absolutely everyone was certain. Common Motors stated it would temporarily pause advertising on Twitter, including, “We are engaging with Twitter to realize the direction of the platform beneath their new possession.” 

Advertisers, of study course, are not eager on showing up near offensive content, and there’s been a sharp maximize in that since Musk took command, with Twitter trolls flooding the platform with racial slurs and Nazi memes.

“The threat listed here is that in the name of ‘free speech,’ Musk will turn back again the clock and make Twitter into a additional powerful engine of hatred, divisiveness, and misinformation about elections, public health policy, and intercontinental affairs,” Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Middle for Business enterprise and Human Legal rights, told the Associated Press.

On Friday, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted, “To be tremendous crystal clear, we have not yet made any improvements to Twitter’s material moderation policies.” That followed him tweeting before: “Twitter will be forming a content material moderation council with broadly numerous viewpoints. No main material selections or account reinstatements will occur in advance of that council convenes.” 

He also made available glimpses into his imagining about the platform’s long run on Friday and early Saturday when replying to Twitter strategies. When a user noted Facebook has anything related to the content moderation council but however angers equally the left the proper, Musk replied, “Good position. Getting in a position to select which variation of Twitter you want is almost certainly better, significantly as it would be for a movie maturity ranking. The ranking of the tweet by itself could be self-chosen, then modified by person feed-back.”

As Musk toys with ideas, nonetheless, an raise in hateful information might in the meantime drive some end users absent from the platform—including distinguished types like Rhimes.

In accordance to the Network Contagion Research Institute, which analyzes social media content and predicts rising threats, cases of the N-word increased by practically 500% in the 12 several hours immediately immediately after Musk’s takeover was finalized. 

Rhimes, an African-American, didn’t elaborate on why she was leaving the platform. But up until eventually now she’s been a prolific user of Twitter, developing a big pursuing because joining the system in November 2008.