“There is a small possibility that appearances are deceiving,” tweeted the billionaire referring to the attack on Paul Pelosi, and referring to a link to the conservative site Santa Monica Observer, which spread unverified information on the offensive.
Elon Musk on Sunday echoed a rumor about the assault of the husband of Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi as his recent acquisition of the platform sparked fears of a resurgence of misinformation about the app. “There is a small possibility that appearances are deceivingtweeted the billionaire referring to the attack on Paul Pelosi, and referring to a link to the conservative site Santa Monica Observer, which spread unverified information about the attack.
This media has already published conspiracy theories and false information in the past, according to the daily Los Angeles Times. Paul Pelosi was attacked at his home on Friday by a man with a hammer, who was actually looking for Nancy Pelosi. He suffered in particular from a fractured skull and had to be hospitalized.
many comments
Elon Musk was reacting to a tweet from former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton castigating conspiracy theories promoted by the Republican Party. “The Republican Party and its spokespersons now routinely propagate hate speech and outright crazy conspiracy theories“, Criticized the former US Secretary of State. “It’s shocking but not surprising, and violence is the result“. Elon Musk’s tweet sparked a number of comments.
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“Clinton: Conspiracy theories are responsible for killing people and we shouldn’t give them visibility. Twitter owner: but have you heard of this conspiracy theory?“, summed up Seth Masket, professor of political science at the University of Denver, who reported Elon Musk’s tweet as inappropriate to the social network.
Coordinated attacks by “trolls”
The whimsical boss of Tesla and SpaceX, who presents himself as the cantor of freedom of expression, has repeatedly affirmed that he wants to make Twitter a kind of digital agora, where all opinions are free to express themselves. However, seeking to reassure his advertisers, Elon Musk promised after his acquisition of Twitter that he would give the platform a “content moderation advice“.
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A few days after its takeover, the network was the subject of coordinated attacks by “trollspouting hateful content, according to a Twitter official. “Over the past 48 hours, we’ve seen a small number of accounts post a deluge of tweets containing slurs and other offensive language.“Said Yoel Roth, platform integrity manager, on Saturday.
“To give you an idea of the scale: more than 50,000 tweets mentioning a particular insult came from just 300 accounts“, he added, specifying that the vast majority of them were fake accounts. Yoel Roth reiterated that the “hate speech had no placeon Twitter, its moderation policy not having “exchange”, and that the company was taking steps to “put an end to any organized effort to make people believe otherwise“.
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