Elon Musk officially bought Twitter a few days ago.
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“There is a small possibility that appearances are deceiving. » Here is the sentence published by Elon Musk which caused an uproar on Twitter, recently acquired by the businessman. As reported by AFP, the new owner of the social network has indeed relayed a rumor concerning the aggression of the husband of Nancy Pelosi, before deleting his post in the face of criticism. The husband of the leader of the Democrats in Congress was attacked at his home on Friday by an individual armed with a hammer who sought to attack Nancy Pelosi. Suffering from a fractured skull, the victim was hospitalized.
A reaction to a Hillary Clinton tweet
In addition to his comment on the ” deceptive appearances “, Elon Musk shared the link to an article from the Santa Monica Observer. According to the Los Angeles Times, this conservative site has previously reported conspiracy theories and misinformation. The SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter boss was initially commenting on a tweet from former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The latter denounced the conspiracy theories peddled by the Republican Party, reports AFP. “The Republican Party and its spokespersons now routinely propagate hate speech and outright crazy conspiracy theories”, wrote the former US Secretary of State. For her, it is an act “shocking but not surprising”pushing to ” violence “.
A shower of criticism
Elon Musk’s tweet was quick to come under fire on Twitter. “The troll Elon should alert the removal (of this tweet) the head of Twitter Elon”, quipped the former UN special rapporteur for freedom of expression, David Kaye. A University of Denver political science professor who flagged the billionaire’s tweet summed up the situation in a way that made fun of it. If Hillary Clinton indicates, as the Internet user writes, that conspiracy theories “responsible for the death of people” should not be given visibility, Elon Musk would prefer to ask: “But have you heard of this conspiracy theory? »
Twitter declined to comment on the situation to AFP. Just days after Elon Musk took over Twitter, many “trolls” posted hateful content to test the moderation policy of the network’s new bluebird boss – who considers Twitter’s policy too strict, arguing for a platform where all opinions would be free to express themselves.
According to a Twitter official, “more than 50,000 tweets mentioning a particular insult came from just 300 accounts”, considered false. Platform Integrity Officer Yoel Roth, however, warned that Twitter’s moderation policy had not changed and that the company would take steps to “stop any organized effort to make people believe otherwise”.