Top EU official: ‘In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules’
Amid fears that Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and his stance as a “free speech absolutist” could turn it into a platform for hate speech, Thierry Breton, the commissioner for internal market of the European Union, has weighed in.
Responding to Musk’s tweet, he said:
He used the the hashtag DSA – a reference to the Digital Services Act, one of two new packages of EU legislation designed to tighten regulation of social media.
Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister (and former lead Brexit negotiator for the European Parliament) who sits in the European Parliament, says:
So one man @elonmusk now owns the biggest debate in the world…
The need for rules and accountability is bigger than ever !
Self-regulation in social media has never worked… even with lesser characters than his pic.twitter.com/h7LYYxVo4W
— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) October 28, 2022
Key events
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Musk expected to address Twitter staff today
Elon Musk is expected to speak to Twitter staff later today, as he seals the $44bn takeover of the social media platform.
Leslie Berland, Twitter’s chief marketing officer, sent a memo to employees on Wednesday saying he would visit the company’s headquarters this week, Bloomberg reported.
“Elon is in the SF office this week meeting with folks, walking the halls, and continuing to dive in on the important work you all do,” Berland wrote in the memo. “For everyone else, this is just the beginning of many meetings and conversations with Elon, and you’ll all hear directly from him on Friday.”
Musk has threatened to slash 75% of the workforce which totals about 7,500, and earlier this week Twitter employees sent an open letter to him and the board, according to Time magazine.
“We demand transparent, prompt and thoughtful communication around our working conditions,” the letter read. “We demand to be treated with dignity, and to not be treated as mere pawns in a game played by billionaires.”
Here’s some analysis of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter by my colleagues Kari Paul and Alex Hern:
Hate speech and misinformation experts are bracing for the return of Donald Trump to the platform, as Elon Musk completes his acquisition of Twitter.
The social media site permanently removed Trump in January 2021, saying the former president’s tweets were “highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021”.
However, earlier this year Musk said he would reverse that ban, calling Twitter “left-biased”, and on Thursday he reportedly sacked the executive responsible.
“I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” the Tesla CEO told a Financial Times conference in May. “I think that was a mistake. It alienated the country and did not result in Donald Trump not having a voice. I think it was a morally bad decision and foolish in the extreme.”
Eliot Higgins, founder and creative director of Bellingcat, the Netherlands-based investigative journalism group, says Twitter’s failure to self-regulate would lead to tighter government rules for all social media firms.
A lack of self-regulation on Twitter will just increase the likelihood of government regulation of all social media, it’s as simple as that.
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) October 28, 2022
Has there been an explanation to why suddenly follower counts on lots of account dropped overnight? Twitter getting in some bans before the Musk era begins?
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) October 28, 2022
In 2007, Bobbie Johnson, former Guardian technology correspondent in London, tried to answer the question many in the UK were asking about the new ‘micro-blogging’ site from the US that was creating huge amounts of buzz: “What is Twitter, and is there any reason I should care?”
In his piece for the paper’s technology supplement (unearthed by Jason Rodrigues of the Guardian’s research & information department), he said of Twitter: “On first glance it is a baffling and seemingly pointless service – but underneath it proves intriguing, useful and addictive for those who live on the move”. You can read the full article here.
Ironically, the debate about the future of Twitter following its acquisition by the world’s richest man Elon Musk is being conducted on the social media platform – where else?
The American lawyer Tristan Snell tweeted this morning:
People are not leaving Twitter in droves. The drops in follower count are happening in sudden chunks — it’s bot cleanup, not actual people quitting.
— Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) October 28, 2022
Top EU official: ‘In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules’
Amid fears that Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and his stance as a “free speech absolutist” could turn it into a platform for hate speech, Thierry Breton, the commissioner for internal market of the European Union, has weighed in.
Responding to Musk’s tweet, he said:
He used the the hashtag DSA – a reference to the Digital Services Act, one of two new packages of EU legislation designed to tighten regulation of social media.
Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister (and former lead Brexit negotiator for the European Parliament) who sits in the European Parliament, says:
So one man @elonmusk now owns the biggest debate in the world…
The need for rules and accountability is bigger than ever !
Self-regulation in social media has never worked… even with lesser characters than his pic.twitter.com/h7LYYxVo4W
— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) October 28, 2022
The American multi-media journalist and novelist David Leavitt says:
There’s a massive flood of literally hundreds of people each minute using the N word and rampant hate speech happening on Twitter right now post Elon purchase pic.twitter.com/uAqnZJuwjW
— David Leavitt (@David_Leavitt) October 28, 2022
If you type the n word or Holocaust into the search bar then click latest you can view and report racists that have come out of the woodwork after Elon Musk bought twitter in real time.
But will Twitter do anything about it?
— David Leavitt (@David_Leavitt) October 28, 2022
How have Twitter users reacted? The Guardian’s Matthew Cantor in San Francisco has taken a look.
Richard Murphy, economic justice campaigner and professor of accounting practice at Sheffield University, says:
Elon Musk has now bought Twitter. Am I pleased? No. Am I going elsewhere, as yet? No, of course not. Three reasons. 1) Twitter can already be nasty 2) The far-right already use it. 3) The arguments are, right now, bigger than the media delivering them. But let’s see what happens.
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) October 28, 2022
And here’s a selection of ‘the best tweets of all time’.
Former City analyst Louise Cooper, now a senior lecturer in finance at Kingston University Business School, tweets:
Elon Musk overpaid massively for an asset he didn’t even want to buy.
Appalling market timing (started buying Twitter in jan at peak of market, tech stocks down 32% since)
Appalling decision making
$44bn is a lot of money.
Is this a turning point in his so far meteoric rise?— Louise Cooper CFA (@Louiseaileen70) October 28, 2022
It’s been a terrible week for Big Tech, with results from Google parent Alphabet, Facebook owner Meta, and Amazon spooking investors and triggering a selloff of technology stocks. Meta shares crashed almost 25% on Thursday, while Amazon fell 20% in after-hours trading.
More reaction from Peter Vidlicka, co-founder of the free PR platform Newspage.
The bird may have been freed but the focus now is on how it behaves, as a songbird or the social media equivalent of a raptor.
Musk’s immediate firing of several of the senior management team is standard operating procedure in many regards but also proof positive that he has new ideas for the direction of one of the world’s leading social media platforms.
All eyes are now on the potential return of Trump. That’s the ultimate litmus test for Twitter moving forward. Will Musk stand by his word and let Trump back onto the platform or cave to the demands of the corporate world?
Advertisers globally will be monitoring events closely and assessing whether the new form Twitter takes remains a viable marketing option.
Elon Musk describes himself as a free speech absolutist, so in the current socio-cultural climate, we can expect fireworks in the months ahead.
To many, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter will be seen as a cultural stand, a reinforcement of free speech and a much-needed authentication of everyday people and their everyday views.
To others, there is a fine line between free speech and hate speech and many are concerned that Twitter under Musk could become an even wilder West than it already is.
When Musk paid a visit to Twitter’s headquarters on Wednesday, he posted a video of himself in the company’s San Francisco lobby carrying a sink.
“Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” he tweeted on Wednesday.
Musk also changed his Twitter profile to refer to himself as “Chief Twit” and his location as Twitter headquarters.
Victoria Scholar, head of investment at the trading platform interactive investor, said:
On Thursday, he took over the social media site following an elongated process full of twist and turns in true unpredictable Elon Musk style. Musk has already sacked CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal who he had been in a dispute with over the deal. He also wants to slim down its 7,500 workforce, leaving employees, many of whom are already uncomfortable about the deal, now also…
Read More:EU Commissioner tells Elon Musk that Twitter must ‘fly by our rules’ – business live | Business
2022-10-28 10:44:53
