Twitter needs to be politically neutral to regain public trust, says Elon Musk

Twitter owner Elon Musk has said that the platform "needs to be politically neutral’ in order to regain ‘public trust’ and effectively this means “upsetting the far right and the far left equally.”

Elon Musk 

Newly minted Twitter owner Elon Musk has said that the platform “needs to be politically neutral’ in order to regain ‘public trust’ and effectively this means “upsetting the far right and the far left equally.” It should be noted that both sides of the political spectrum have long accused the platform of practising arbitrary rules when it comes to content moderation. In the US, however, Republicans in particular insist that platforms such as Twitter, Facebook are more pro-left, and block pro-right content.

Musk is hinting that he wants the platform to play somewhere in middle. The SpaceX owner wrote that since he acquired the platform, “attacks are coming thick and fast, primarily from the left, which is no surprise.” But he added that, “I should be clear that the right will probably be a little unhappy too.”

“My goal is to maximize area under the curve of total human happiness, which means the ~80% of people in the middle,” he wrote.

Musk also posted that, “Twitter DMs should have end to end encryption like Signal, so no one can spy on or hack your message.” DMs are direct messages on Twitter. Previous reports have pointed out DMs on Twitter are available even after a user deletes them.

He also posted a screenshot showing how Trump’s social network, ‘Truth Social’ was doing better on the App Store compared to say Twitter or TikTok. It should be noted TikTok has over one billion users. Responding to his own screenshot, Musk posted that, “Truth Social (terrible name) exists because Twitter censored free speech.”

Also read |Elon Musk’s Twitter: How his free speech argument could play out in India

The Tesla owner has been constantly reiterating that Twitter needs to support free speech and it is something he will focus on, now that he owns the social network. Though he clarified that when he says free speech, he means it within the realm of what the law allows. He also tweeted that Truth Social should have been called ‘Trumpet’ instead.

Check out all of his tweets below

However, his behaviour on Twitter has raised concerns given it has resulted in some Twitter employees facing abuse on the platform. Most prominently, Twitter’s legal head Vijaya Gadde has faced a lot of online hate and abuse after Musk replied to a tweet about an an article which mentioned her.

Musk has since also tweeted a meme from a Joe Rogan podcast, which mocks Gadde and raises doubts about Twitter’s left wing bias. Other reports have highlighted how some Twitter employees have had their identities revealed on the platform and are now being targeted with hate speech.

In Gadde’s case, the hate began after a tweet was by Saagar Enjeti–host of a political podcast–who posted a Politico article which stated that she broke down in tears at a meeting with her staff this week after news of the acquisition.

Enjeti wrote, “Vijaya Gadde, the top censorship advocate at Twitter who famously gaslit the world on Joe Rogan’s podcast and censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, is very upset about the Elon Musk takeover.” Musk replied to the tweet saying it was an “incredibly inappropriate,” move referring to the decision to suspend NY Post’s accounts for Hunter Biden stories.

While he did not name the executive, it was enough to set the trolls on Gadde. So far only former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has called him out, tweeting that, “Bullying is not leadership.” Musk replied to this, “What are talking about? I’m just saying Twitter needs to be politically neutral.

He also replied to a tweet to say that, “The Washington Post targets me relentlessly!” WaPo is owned by Jeff Bezos, who had also taken digs at Musk after his Twitter takeover. Musk then tried to downplay the WaPo criticism, in his typical style and posted, “Their insults could be higher quality, but some are not bad. I gave them 3 stars on Yelp.”