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Elon Musk’s Twitter has dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the advisory group of around 100 independent civil, human rights and other organizations that the company formed in 2016 to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform.
The council had been scheduled to meet with Twitter representatives Monday night. But Twitter informed the group via email that it was disbanding it shortly before the meeting was to take place, according to multiple members.
The council members, who provided images of the email from Twitter to The Associated Press, spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation. The email said Twitter was “reevaluating how best to bring external insights” and the council is “not the best structure to do this.”
“Our work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal,” said the email, which was signed “Twitter.”
The volunteer group provided expertise and guidance on how Twitter could better combat hate, harassment and other harms but didn’t have any decision-making authority and didn’t review specific content disputes. Shortly after buying Twitter for $44 billion in late October, Musk said he would form a new “content moderation council” to help make major decisions but later changed his mind.
“Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council was a group of volunteers who over many years gave up their time when consulted by Twitter staff to offer advice on a wide range of online harms and safety issues,” tweeted council member Alex Holmes. “At no point was it a governing body or decision making.”
Twitter, which is based in San Francisco, had confirmed the meeting with the council Thursday in an email in which it promised an “open conversation and Q&A” with Twitter staff, including the new head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin.
That came on the same day that three council members announced they were resigning in a public statement posted on Twitter that said that “contrary to claims by Elon Musk, the safety and wellbeing of Twitter’s users are on the decline.”
Those former council members soon became the target of online attacks after Musk amplified criticism of them and Twitter’s past leadership for allegedly not doing enough to stop child sexual exploitation on the platform.
“It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!” Musk tweeted.
A growing number of attacks on the council led to concerns from some remaining members who sent an email to Twitter earlier on Monday demanding the company stop misrepresenting the council’s role.Those false accusations by Twitter leaders were “endangering current and former Council members,” the email said.
The Trust and Safety Council, in fact, had as one of its advisory groups one that focused on child exploitation. This included the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the Rati Foundation and YAKIN, or Youth Adult Survivors & Kin in Need.
Former Twitter employee Patricia Cartes, whose job it was to form the council in 2016, said Monday its dissolution “means there’s no more checks and balances.” Cartes said the company sought to bring a global outlook to the council, with experts from around the world who could relay concerns about how new Twitter policies or products might affect their communities.
She contrasted that with Musk’s current practice of surveying his Twitter followers before making a policy change affecting how content gets moderated.
“He doesn’t really care as much about what experts think,” she said.
Twitter is once again attempting to launch its premium service, a month after a previous attempt by the company failed.
The social media platform said it would let users buy subscriptions to Twitter Blue to get a blue check mark and access special features starting Monday (Dec. 12).
The company owned by billionaire Elon Musk has also started granting a new gold-colored check mark to businesses on the platform. The gold label began appearing Monday on the account profiles for Coca-Cola, Nike, Google and dozens of other big corporations.
“The gold checkmark indicates that the account is an official business account through Twitter Blue for Business,” the company says on a support web page.
Twitter’s blue check mark was originally given to companies, celebrities, government entities and journalists verified by the platform. After Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October, he launched a service granting blue checks to anyone who was willing to pay $8 a month. But it was inundated by imposter accounts, including those impersonating companies like Nintendo, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, so Twitter suspended the service days after its launch.
The relaunched service will cost $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for iPhone and iPad users. San Francisco-based Twitter says subscribers will see fewer ads, be able to post longer videos and have their tweets featured more prominently. Twitter’s website doesn’t say if business accounts must pay extra for the gold label or if it is granted automatically.
Elton John is the latest celebrity to leave Twitter following Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform.
The “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues” singer sent out his last tweet on Friday (Dec. 9), writing, “All my life I’ve tried to use music to bring people together. Yet it saddens me to see how misinformation is now being used to divide our world.”
He continued, “I’ve decided to no longer use Twitter, given their recent change in policy which will allow misinformation to flourish unchecked.”
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Upon seeing John’s tweet, Musk himself responded, “I love your music. Hope you come back. Is there any misinformation in particular that you’re concerned about?” John has yet to reply.
I love your music. Hope you come back. Is there any misinformation in particular that you’re concerned about?— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
John’s decision to leave Twitter follows a number of other stars who have done the same, including Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor, Sara Bareilles, Jack White and more. You can see our full list here.
In October, it was revealed that Tesla CEO Elon Musk took control of Twitter after a lengthy legal battle and months of uncertainty. Since beginning his reign on the popular social media platform, the multi-billionaire has made a number of controversial decisions, including reinstating former president Donald Trump to Twitter after the site’s previous owners had permanently suspended him for violating company rules in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Friday that K-pop star T.O.P and American DJ Steve Aoki will be among the eight people who will join him on a flyby around the moon on a SpaceX spaceship next year.
The Japanese tycoon launched plans for the lunar voyage in 2018, buying all the seats on the spaceship. He began taking applications from around the world in March 2021 for what will be his second space journey after his 12-day trip to the International Space Station on the Soyuz Russian spaceship last year.
The eight people Maezawa selected for his “dearMoon project” are T.O.P, who debuted as a lead rapper for the K-pop group Big Bang; Aoki; filmmaker Brendan Hall and YouTuber Tim Dodd, also of the United States. The other four are British photographer Karim Illiya, Indian actor Dev Joshi, Czech artist Yemi AD and Irish photographer Rhiannon Adam. American Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu were chosen as backups.
T.O.P.’s real name is Choi Seung-hyun. The 35-year-old started out as an underground rapper before joining Big Bang, one of the world’s top boy bands, in 2006.
T.O.P. said in a video released by the dearMoon website that he has always fantasized about space and the moon since he was a child and, “I cannot wait.”
“When I finally see the moon closer I look forward to my personal growth and returning to the earth as an artist with an inspiration,” he said.
Maezawa made the announcement on his Twitter and the dearMoon Project website on Friday, after he tweeted last week saying he held an online meeting with Elon Musk and that his “major announcement about space” was underway.
He and the others would be among the first to travel on the SpaceX vehicle. The trip is expected to take about a week. The spaceship will not make a lunar landing but is expected to come within 200 kilometers (120 miles) of the moon’s surface while circling it for three days.
The trip is expected next year, though the exact schedule has not been disclosed.
“Since I was a little I was dreaming of going to the moon,” said Aoki. “It’s becoming more and more real every day. Still hard to believe but very excited for this amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To the moon!”
Last year, Maezawa, 47, and his producer Yozo Hirano became the first self-paying tourists to visit the space station since 2009. He has not disclosed the cost for that mission, though reports said he paid $80 million.
Maezawa made his fortune in retail fashion, launching Japan’s largest online fashion mall, Zozotown. In 2019, he resigned as CEO of the e-commerce company Zozo Inc. to devote his time to space travel. Forbes magazine estimates his wealth at $1.9 billion.
Jack White used social media to confront Elon Musk on Friday (Dec. 2) over Kanye West‘s latest pro-Nazi tweet and the billionaire’s seemingly selective views on free speech.
“So Elon, how’s that ‘free speech’ thing working out?” the rocker wrote on Instagram in a scathing open letter to the controversial new owner of Twitter. “Oh, I see, so you have to CHOOSE who gets free speech and who doesn’t then? What kind of crybaby liberal suspends someone’s free speech?Hmm….”
While Ye’s account has once again been suspended, Musk has been a supporter of allowing the rapper to spread his opinions — including antisemitic views — on the platform under the guise of freedom of speech ever since he took over in October.
White further compared West’s reinstatement on Twitter to Musk’s refusal to allow Alex Jones back on the platform, writing, “Conspiracy liar alex jones doesn’t get ‘free speech’ either? I see. So you’re learning that these folks incite violence and hatred but trump…DOESN’T? Hmmm. Or is it that liar jones, and anti-Semite egomaniac kanye can’t provide tax breaks for billionaires the way the former president could? Or that maybe the controller of this ‘free speech’ is insulted personally? Or that just maybe, there needs to be, oh I don’t know, RULES and REGULATIONS or else you breed chaos?
“It’s nice to watch in real time as you learn that all things need to be regulated, whether that be guns, drugs, alcohol, assembly, or speech because of the danger of someone or something being hurt or destroyed,” he continued. “They’re sometimes called ‘laws.’ And perhaps you’re learning how harmful it can be when you let dangerous, hateful people say whatever they want on your stage.”
The White Stripes alum went on to explain his decision to turn the comments off on his post, saying, “This isn’t a debate forum. This is me talking on my front porch, not debating in town square. I regulate the platforms i control too.”
He then ended the post by urging Musk to “do the right thing…and don’t provide other hate mongers a stage, let them go talk in town square,” before reminding readers, “(And no, twitter isn’t town square owned by the govt., it’s a private company owned by Elon Musk.)”
For his part, White was one of numerous musicians and celebs to leave Twitter in the wake of Musk’s $44 billion takeover, particularly following the businessman’s decision to let former President Donald Trump back onto the social-networking site via a public poll.
Read White’s full statement to Musk below.
Kanye “Ye” West has been suspended from Twitter, the suspension coming after the rapper had tweeted a now-deleted post featuring a swastika on Thursday (Dec. 1) evening.
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After a chaotic day that saw Ye appear on Alex Jones’ Infowars show and repeatedly say he liked Adolf Hitler, the rapper posted a series of controversial tweets, including supposed text messages between himself and Twitter CEO Elon Musk. Among the tweets, which included praise and support for Balenciaga following the recent backlash against the company, Ye posted a picture of a swastika merged with a Star of David. Twitter deleted the offending post and Ye’s tweet storm came to an abrupt end.
Suspecting he may get suspended, Ye also tweeted an unflattering picture of Musk being hosed by Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel on a yacht. Emanuel had previously called for a Hollywood-led boycott of Ye after he made a series of antisemitic comments that ultimately led to brands such as Adidas and Balenciaga cutting their ties with the rapper.
On Truth Social, Ye’s verified account posted another picture of his text interaction with Musk as well as a screenshot showing that he was locked out of his account for 12 hours.
Musk, a self-described free speech absolutist, confirmed that Ye had been suspended, first replying “This is fine” to the unflattering picture, but “this is not” to the now deleted swastika tweet.
After a Twitter user tweeted at Musk to “fix Kanye please,” the CEO replied, “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.”
In a further reply, Musk tweeted, “Just clarifying that his account is being suspended for incitement to violence, not an unflattering pic of me being hosed by Ari. Frankly, I found those pics to be helpful motivation to lose weight!”
Doubling down, Musk tweeted the acronym “FAFO” which means f*** around and find out.
The Hollywood Reporter reached out to a Twitter rep for comment, but that employee no longer works at the company.
Ye was only recently reinstated to Twitter, following Musk’s $44 billion takeover of the company and pledge to rescind suspensions to prominent accounts including the rapper, former President Donald Trump and Jordan Peterson. In October, Ye’s initial suspension came after he tweeted that he was going to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.”
“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” he wrote. “The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”
I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2022
This article originally appeared in THR.com.
In October, it was revealed that Tesla CEO Elon Musk took control of Twitter after a lengthy legal battle and months of uncertainty.
Since beginning his reign on the popular social media platform, the multi-billionaire has made a number of controversial decisions, including reinstating former president Donald Trump to Twitter after the site’s previous owners had permanently suspended him for violating company rules in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The decision to reactivate Trump’s account comes after Musk posted a Twitter poll asking users if they would like to see the former president back on the platform — days after Trump announced his third White House bid. After that, Musk announced that he would return the suspended Trump account after around 15 million users allegedly voted 51.8% in favor of reinstating it.
Amid Musk’s Twitter takeover, a number of stars have removed themselves from the platform, citing hate speech and Musk’s decisions. We’ve compiled all the musicians who have decided that Twitter is no longer for them, including Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor, Sara Bareilles, Jack White and more. See below.
Elon Musk said Friday (Nov. 25) that Twitter plans to relaunch its premium service that will offer different colored check marks to accounts next week, in a fresh move to revamp the service after a previous attempt backfired.
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It’s the latest change to the social media platform that the billionaire Tesla CEO bought last month for $44 billion, coming a day after Musk said he would grant “amnesty” for suspended accounts and causing yet more uncertainty for users.
Twitter previously suspended the premium service, which under Musk granted blue-check labels to anyone paying $8 a month, because of a wave of imposter accounts. Originally, the blue check was given to government entities, corporations, celebrities and journalists verified by the platform to prevent impersonation.
In the latest version, companies will get a gold check, governments will get a gray check, and individuals who pay for the service, whether or not they’re celebrities, will get a blue check, Musk said Friday.
“All verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates,” he said, adding it was “Painful, but necessary” and promising a “longer explanation” next week. He said the service was “tentatively launching” Dec. 2.
Twitter had put the revamped premium service on hold days after its launch earlier this month after accounts impersonated companies including pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co., Nintendo, Lockheed Martin, and even Musk’s own businesses Tesla and SpaceX, along with various professional sports and political figures.
It was just one change in the past two days. On Thursday, Musk said he would grant “amnesty” for suspended accounts, following the results of an online poll he conducted on whether accounts that have not “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam” should be reinstated.
The yes vote was 72%. Such online polls are anything but scientific and can easily be influenced by bots. Musk also used one before restoring former U.S. President Donald Trump’s account.
“The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted Thursday using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.”
The move is likely to put the company on a crash course with European regulators seeking to clamp down on harmful online content with tough new rules, which helped cement Europe’s reputation as the global leader in efforts to rein in the power of social media companies and other digital platforms.
Zach Meyers, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform think tank, said giving blanket amnesty based on an online poll is an “arbitrary approach” that’s “hard to reconcile with the Digital Services Act,” a new EU law that will start applying to the biggest online platforms by mid-2023.
The law is aimed at protecting internet users from illegal content and reducing the spread of harmful but legal content. It requires big social media platforms to be “diligent and objective” in enforcing restrictions, which must be spelled out clearly in the fine print for users when signing up, Meyers said.
Britain also is working on its own online safety law.
“Unless Musk quickly moves from a ‘move fast and break things’ approach to a more sober management style, he will be on a collision course with Brussels and London regulators,” Meyers said.
European Union officials took to social media to highlight their worries. The 27-nation bloc’s executive Commission published a report Thursday that found Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it this year compared with 2021.
The report was based on data collected over the spring — before Musk acquired Twitter — as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms’ compliance with the bloc’s voluntary code of conduct on disinformation. It found that Twitter assessed just over half of the notifications it received about illegal hate speech within 24 hours, down from 82% in 2021.
The numbers may yet worsen. Since taking over, Musk has l aid off half the company’s 7,500-person workforce along with an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation. Many others have resigned, including the company’s head of trust and safety.
Recent layoffs at Twitter and results of the EU’s review “are a source of concern,” the bloc’s commissioner for justice, Didier Reynders tweeted Thursday evening after meeting with Twitter executives at the company’s European headquarters in Dublin.
In the meeting, Reynders said he “underlined that we expect Twitter to deliver on their voluntary commitments and comply with EU rules,” including the Digital Services Act and the bloc’s strict privacy regulations known as General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.
Vera Jourova, the European Commission’s vice president for values and transparency, tweeted Thursday evening that she was concerned about news reports that a “vast amount” of Twitter’s European staff were fired.
“If you want to effectively detect and take action against #disinformation & propaganda, this requires resources,” Jourova said. “Especially in the context of Russian disinformation warfare.”
Trent Reznor is the latest celebrity to pull the plug on his Twitter account in the wake of Elon Musk taking over the social media platform.
In a Saturday interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Nine Inch Nails frontman spoke about the reasons behind his exit, saying, “I’m about to depart. We don’t need the arrogance of the billionaire class to feel like they can just come in and solve everything. Even without him involved, I just find that it has become such a toxic environment. For my mental health, I need to tune out. I don’t feel good being there anymore.”
It didn’t take long for Musk to catch wind of Reznor’s interview, and Twitter’s new overlord took a jab at the rocker in a direct reply to a random supporter. “Breaking … 48 hours since @elonmusk reinstated President Trump’s Twitter account and the world still hasn’t ended,” wrote an anonymous, conservative user under the handle @catturd2.
“And it turns out Trent ‘nine inch nails’ Reznor is actually a crybaby,” Musk responded with a laughing emoji. One Nine Inch Nails fan couldn’t resist sticking up for the absent Reznor, writing, “You’re a stupid idiot. Trent [Reznor] is one of the best musicians ever,” to which the billionaire doubled down on his insults, adding, “I like his music tbh, but maybe Etsy is more his style.”
Reznor is far from the only famous face who’s abandoned Twitter since Musk took over, with Sara Bareilles, Jack White, Toni Braxton, Whoopi Goldberg, Gigi Hadid and others also quitting the social media site.
Check out a screenshot of Musk’s Twitter exchange below.
It’s absolutely eating Elon up inside that someone like Trent Reznor despises him while the people that support him and are his online friends are people like catturd and Ian Miles Cheong pic.twitter.com/nDLYEqUXj6— Wild Geerters (@steinkobbe) November 21, 2022
Add Jack White to the growing list of musicians, activists and politicians who are fleeing Twitter in the wake of new owner Elon Musk’s so-far chaotic reign. Specifically, White blasted Musk for his controversial decision to reinstate former president Donald Trump to the platform after the site’s previous owners had permanently suspended the election-denying real estate mogul for violating company rules in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“So you gave trump his twitter platform back. Absolutely disgusting, Elon. That is officially an a–hole move,” White wrote in a lengthy note posted on Sunday (Nov. 20) after deactivating his Third Man Records label’s Twitter account in protest.
“Why dont you be truthful? Tell it like it is; people like you and Joe Rogan (who gives platforms to liarslike alex jones etc.); you come into a ton of money, see the tax bill, despise paying your fair share, and then think moving to Texas and supporting whatever republican you can is going to help you keep more of your money (How else could trump possibly interest you?),” White continued.
“You intend to give platforms to known liars and wash your hands like pontius pilate and claim no responsibility? trump was removed from twitter because he incited violence multiple times, people died and were injured as a result of his lies and his ego, (let alone what his coup did to attempt to destroy democracy and our Capitol).”
After posting a Twitter poll asking users if they would like to see Trump back on the service — just days after the failed 2020 candidate announced his third White House bid — Musk announced that he would return the suspended Trump account after around 15 million users allegedly voted 51.8% in favor of reinstating it. White’s post pointed to the division and “families broken apart” by Trump’s divisive rhetoric and its destructive impact on the nation as a reason to keep his conspiracy peddling account shuttered.
“That’s not ‘free speech’ or ‘what the poll decided’ or whatever nonsense you’re claiming it to be;this is straight up you trying to help a fascist have a platform so you can eventually get your tax breaks.I mean, how many more billions do you need that you have to risk democracy itself to obtain it?” White asked, giving Musk credit for doing “amazing things” with his electric car company, Tesla, which the rocker noted, he personally “supported the hell out of.”
But, White said, world’s’ richest Man Musk had gone “too far” and is now using his power to promote “horrible, violence-inducing liars, who are taking the country and the world backwards and endangering the democracy that made you rich and successful in the first place.” White said he steadfastly believes in free speech, though he noted that he would never let the Ku Klux Klan hold a rally at his record label’s performance stage, or sell the KKK gasoline burn crosses “then wash my hands as if I didn’t help facilitate hatred.”
White acknowledged that Musk took on a big responsibility in spending $44 billion on the site, but said that “‘free speech’ isn’t some umbrella that protects you from that.” In a follow-up comment on his Instagram, White said “shame on you” to Musk for giving Trump and other “professional liars” a place on Twitter; on Saturday, Trump, who launched his own social media site after being booted from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram after the insurrection, said he has no plans to return to the site. “And shame on you if you think it’s no big deal. It is,” wrote White of the decision Musk made in his signature move-fast-and-blow-up-things style.
Noting that he’s never had a personal Twitter account, White then announced that he’d de-activated the Third Man Records account, saying it’s a “shame that our label’s artists will los a social media outlet to promote their art,” and apologizing to his acts for doing so. “But we are not going to even tangentially support you or this platform that will help conspiracy spreading liars and out of touch narci-capitalists tear this country apart, all for trump’s ego and your tax break agenda,” he said.
White’s noisy exit follows Nine Inch Nails leader Trent Reznor announcing that he plans to leave his 1.6 million Twitter followers behind while saying “we don’t need the arrogance of the billionaire class to feel like they can just come in and solve everything.” Even without Trump, Reznor said he finds Twitter to be “such a toxic environment. For my mental health, I need to tune out. I don’t feel goo being there anymore.”
Among the other stars who’ve logged off for good in the days since Musk’s Oct. 28 acquisition of the company are: Alex Winter, David Dastmalchian, Laura Benanti, Gigi Hadid and Whoopi Goldberg, while others have signaled their intentions to stop using Twitter in the near future.
“You should return to using your money and influence in ways that help the world like the electric car did, not in ways that bring negativity and division to the populace,” White concluded his statement. “And no, this isn’t ‘funny’ either Elon, it’s dangerous. Enjoy your new found power as a ‘freedom of speech’ purveyor but remember that the violence and division that occurs based on those tweeting lies is directly related to you giving them a platform.”
At press time it did not appear that Musk had responded to White.
See White’s full post below.