Don’t miss if you get the chance to shoot at the King.
BBC decided to take aim at Elon Musk’s new Twitter and use a tired, debunked strategy. The UK’s news network reports that “insiders”, who claim Twitter users cannot be protected against — horror of horrors, trolls — are saying so.
Former and current employees of the company told BBC Panorama that features designed to protect Twitter users against harassment and trolling are difficult to maintain amid a chaotic work environment in which Musk is constantly surrounded by bodyguards. I have spoken with dozens of people, and several are now available for interviews.
The former head of content design claims that everyone in her team, which was responsible for safety measures like nudge buttons, has been fired. Later, she resigned. Twitter’s internal research shows that trolling was reduced by 60%. The Twitter engineer told me that “nobody is taking care” of this type of work. He compared the platform to a building that looks fine from the outside but is on fire inside.
It then makes accusations about Twitter being a hub of child sexual abuse, targeted harassment, misogyny, and attacks on rape survivors. Marianna Spring, the author of this post, uses herself to gauge the hatred she gets and backs it with a University of Sheffield study.
Spring’s biases are obvious but, like many “journalists”, she wouldn’t admit to them. Spring covers “misinformation and social media.” According to her, other social media scenes seem safer than Twitter. She is very concerned about conspiracies, and cannot seem to send a single tweet without some type of mainstream media buzzword. She has covered topics such as Twitter’s “COVID-19 Misinformation Policy” being dropped and gave Dr. Anthony Fauci an interview about the trolling harassment she receives.
Another “journalist” wants to tell a story, but also wants to be the story.
Musk was not having it. Musk took a screenshot of the tweet that contained Spring’s article, and used his trademark humor to destroy it.
Musk tweeted, “Sorry for making Twitter a nurturing paradise that has turned into a place that has… trolling.”
Then he followed up with a tweet ridiculing the BBC.
Sorry for turning Twitter from nurturing paradise into place that has … trolls 🧌 pic.twitter.com/HaWl1jPfOm
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2023
Musk may be criticized for not directly responding to the claims made in the article. But, if you really look at it…why should he? The truth about Twitter is well-known to the world.
Before Musk became CEO, Twitter was a left-biased platform where anyone who criticized mainstream narratives or expressed any thought to the right Marxian was shadowbanned. Sometimes you didn’t have to break Twitter’s rules. You could simply be effective.
Twitter was also a hotbed of leftist harassment. Antifa groups can threaten to doxx and get away with it. Twitter could allow leftists to send tweets that violate TOS. Twitter could either delay removing them or simply let them stand.
Spring claims that all forms of sexual exploitation are worse on Twitter than ever. Spring apparently lost sight of how Twitter was before she began her investigations into the new Twitter. The site did little to stop underage pornography trafficking until Musk arrived. In one story, a U.S. District Court sued Twitter after refusing to remove an explicit video of a boy aged 13 from the site. This was despite the fact that the boy had asked the site to do so. The DHS eventually had to intervene and force Twitter to remove the video.
This story has yet to be reported by Spring.
This looks like another lazy hit on the free speech platform by an organization that can spend a lot of money to make the report look official. The truth is that Spring and BBC are only referring to the usual disagreements or findings with organizations such as the CDC and WHO. There is a lot of data disproving their claims.
Spring is obsessed with trolling. Free speech means people can speak their minds, and you will find some people who are simply mean. Spring’s apparent bias to the left suggests that she doesn’t consider trolling or harassment. However, there are many people who disagree with her.
Musk had a right to ridicule her biased reporting.
