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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.
Kanye West checked in on his Twitter account Sunday (Nov. 20) amid reports of Elon Musk reinstating the accounts of Donald Trump and other controversial figures this weekend.
“Testing Testing Seeing if my Twitter is unblocked,” West tweeted out to his nearly 32 million followers Sunday afternoon.
Among the reactions in the comments section, one follower remarked, “Just as long as you don’t start another tweet with ‘I’m a bit sleepy.’” Another person shared a photo of Elon Musk posing with Ye, and many posted memes about the situation.
The rapper’s Twitter account was originally temporarily restricted for violating community guidelines in October, when an antisemitic tweet of his was taken down,
“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” he had tweeted on Oct. 8. “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.”
Since then, West has been back on Twitter but not active over the past two weeks.
In early November, he said he would be taking a “fast” from speaking, alcohol, sex and porn.
“I’m not talking to nooobody for a month,” he captioned a post on Nov. 3. “I’m taking a 30 day cleanse, a verbal fast. No alcohol, no adult films, no intercourse.” He concluded with the note, “But my Twitter, still lit.”
Testing Testing Seeing if my Twitter is unblocked— ye (@kanyewest) November 20, 2022
Elon Musk reinstated Donald Trump’s account on Twitter on Saturday (Nov. 19), reversing a ban that has kept the former president off the social media site since a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was poised to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.
Musk made the announcement in the evening after holding a poll that asked Twitter users to click “yes” or “no” on whether Trump’s account should be restored. The “yes” vote won, with 51.2 percent.
“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted, using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.”
Shortly afterward Trump’s account, which had earlier appeared as suspended, reappeared on the platform complete with his former tweets, more than 59,000 of them. However, his followers were gone, at least initially.
It is not clear whether Trump would actually return to Twitter. An irrepressible tweeter before he was banned, Trump has said in the past that he would not rejoin even if his account was reinstated. He has been relying on his own, much smaller social media site, Truth Social, which he launched after being blocked from Twitter.
And on Saturday, during a video speech to a Republican Jewish group meeting in Las Vegas, Trump said that he was aware of Musk’s poll but that he saw “a lot of problems at Twitter,” according to Bloomberg.
“I hear we’re getting a big vote to also go back on Twitter. I don’t see it because I don’t see any reason for it,” Trump was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. “It may make it, it may not make it,” he added, apparently referring to Twitter’s recent internal upheavals.
The prospect of restoring Trump’s presence to the platform follows Musk’s purchase last month of Twitter — an acquisition that has fanned widespread concern that the billionaire owner will allow purveyors of lies and misinformation to flourish on the site. Musk has frequently expressed his belief that Twitter had become too restrictive of freewheeling speech.
His efforts to reshape the site have been both swift and chaotic. Musk has fired many of the company’s 7,500 full-time workers and an untold number of contractors who are responsible for content moderation and other crucial responsibilities. His demand that remaining employees pledge to “extremely hardcore” work triggered a wave of resignations, including hundreds of software engineers.
Users have reported seeing increased spam and scams on their feeds and in their direct messages, among other glitches, in the aftermath of the mass layoffs and worker exodus. Some programmers who were fired or resigned this week warned that Twitter may soon fray so badly it could actually crash.
Musk’s online survey, which ran for 24 hours before ending Saturday evening, concluded with 51.2% of more than 15 million votes favoring the restoration of Trump’s Twitter account. It comes four days after Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency in 2024.
Trump lost his access to Twitter two days after his supporters stormed the Capitol, soon after the former president had exhorted them to “fight like hell.” Twitter dropped his account after Trump wrote a pair of tweets that the company said cast further doubts on the legitimacy of the presidential election and raised risks for the Biden presidential inauguration.
After the Jan. 6 attack, Trump was also kicked off Facebook and Instagram, which are owned by Meta Platforms, and Snapchat. His ability to post videos to his YouTube channel was also suspended. Facebook is set to reconsider Trump’s account suspension in January.
Throughout his tenure as president, Trump’s use of social media posed a significant challenge to major social media platforms that sought to balance the public’s interest in hearing from public officials with worries about misinformation, bigotry, harassment and incitement of violence.
But in a speech at an auto conference in May, Musk asserted that Twitter’s ban of Trump was a “morally bad decision” and “foolish in the extreme.”
Earlier this month, Musk, who completed the $44 billion takeover of Twitter in late October, declared that the company wouldn’t let anyone who had been kicked off the site return until Twitter had established procedures on how to do so, including forming a “content moderation council.”
On Friday, Musk tweeted that the suspended Twitter accounts for the comedian Kathy Griffin, the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and the conservative Christian news satire website Babylon Bee had been reinstated. He added that a decision on Trump had not yet been made. He also responded “no” when someone on Twitter asked him to reinstate the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ account.
In a tweet Friday, the Tesla CEO described the company’s new content policy as “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.”
He explained that a tweet deemed to be “negative” or to include “hate” would be allowed on the site but would be visible only to users who specifically searched for it. Such tweets also would be “demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter,” Musk said.
“Embarrassment,” offers Trent Reznor when asked for his take on Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover.
The Nine Inch Nails frontman and Oscar-winning composer (with longtime partner Atticus Ross) has a sizable 1.6 million following, even if he doesn’t tweet all that much. Nonetheless, he’s ready to say goodbye for good.
“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.”
He’s not alone in weighing his future on the platform. Stars who have logged off for good in the days since Musk’s Oct. 28 acquisition of the company include Alex Winter, David Dastmalchian, Laura Benanti, Gigi Hadid and Whoopi Goldberg, while others have signaled their intentions to stop using Twitter though their accounts have not yet been deleted. Those include Ariana DeBose, Brian Koppelman, Toni Braxton, Ken Olin and others.
The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Reznor and Ross during a joint interview on the red carpet outside TCL Chinese Theater where there was plenty to talk about aside from social media platforms. Specifically, the pair was keen to discuss their collaborations with Bones and All director Luca Guadagnino before heading in to catch the AFI Fest premiere.
Apparently, the gig working with the Italian auteur went so well that they are already months-in on a second collaboration on his tennis film Challengers starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist.
“It couldn’t have been better,” Reznor said of working on the cannibal love story. “We went from not knowing him going into this to meeting a genuine, authentic, respectful collaborator who has become a friend. We were able to work on material that, in every iteration, we were amazed by how it blossomed into something beyond our expectation. I know that sounds ridiculous, you can say, but it really was a magical experience.”
Later, during the post-screening Q&A moderated by Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang, Reznor revealed that he and Ross started working on the music long before Guadagnino picked up any cameras. And it was the filmmaker who suggested an acoustic guitar as the anchor for a “simple, melodic component” that plays throughout the film.
“That started us on our process of approaching this as a love story,” he continued, referring to the flesh-eating couple at the center of the story, played by Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell. Months later, Guadagnino sent a rough cut of the film, four and a half hours in length.
“We sat bound watching that,” Reznor recalled. “To see these characters come to life with such skill and humanity and frailty, it really was a crazy experience. It really was one of those things. We’ll always remember how, wow, the genius, the choice of shots, the art direction. … It really struck us in a way.”
Bones and All opens in theaters on Nov. 18.
This story first appeared in the Nov. 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Jimmy Fallon is not dead, and Jimmy Fallon wants people to know that.
A scurrilous hashtag, #RIPJimmyFallon, has been trending on Twitter Tuesday night (Nov. 15) and The Tonight Show host has had enough, calling on the company’s CEO Elon Musk personally to take down the hashtag.
Earlier on Tuesday, the more mischief-making element on Twitter launched #RIPJimmyFallon, with users posting the hashtag often with a picture of someone other than Fallon.
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Twitter users, particularly those abroad, who weren’t in on the supposed joke were shocked and confused. One Korean user tweeted, “This came up as a hashtag, so I was taken aback. Really. Oh, it’s funny. Because Melon Musk fired all the people in the information confirmation department, now fake news can hit the market, so this hashtag. Oh, it’s funny real #RIPJimmyFallon.”
Perturbed, Fallon tweeted, “Elon, can you fix this? #RIPJimmyFallon.” Musk, who has taken a highly personal approach to content moderation since he took over Twitter, has yet to respond to Fallon’s plea.
Twitter’s current chaos has seen an uptick in disinformation on the platform, a situation compounded by Musk firing a significant number of people involved with content moderation and dealing with fake accounts and fake news.
Last Thursday, an account using the name and logo of the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co. and carrying a blue “verified” checkmark tweeted, “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.” The fake tweet led to the pharma company’s stock dropping from $368 a share to $346 a share, which reportedly erased billions in market cap.
This article originally appeared in THR.com.
Elon Musk tweeted Sunday that Twitter will permanently suspend any account on the social media platform that impersonates another. The platform’s new owner issued the warning after some celebrities changed their Twitter display names — not their account names — and tweeted as ‘Elon Musk’ in reaction to the billionaire’s decision to offer verified accounts to all comers for $8 month as he simultaneously laid off a big chunk of the workforce.
“Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying “parody” will be permanently suspended,” Musk wrote. While Twitter previously issued warnings before suspensions, now that it is rolling out “widespread verification, there will be no warning.”
In fact, “any name change at all” would compel the temporary loss of a verified checkmark, the world’s richest man said.
Comedian Kathy Griffin had her account suspended Sunday after she switched her screen name to Musk. She told a Bloomberg reporter that she had also used his profile photo.
“I guess not ALL the content moderators were let go? Lol,” Griffin joked afterward on Mastodon, an alternative social media platform where she set up an account last week.
Actor Valerie Bertinelli had similarly appropriated Musk’s screen name — posting a series of tweets in support of Democratic candidates on Saturday before switching back to her true name. “Okey-dokey. I’ve had fun and I think I made my point,” she tweeted afterwards.
Before the stunt, Bertinelli noted the original purpose of the blue verification checkmark. It was granted free of charge to people whose identity Twitter employees had confirmed; with journalists accounting for a big portion of recipients. “It simply meant your identity was verified. Scammers would have a harder time impersonating you,” Bertinelli noted.
“That no longer applies. Good luck out there!” she added.
The $8 verified accounts are Musk’s way of democratizing the service, he claims. On Saturday, a Twitter update for iOS devices listed on Apple’s app store said users who “sign up now” for the new “Twitter Blue with verification” can get the blue check next to their names “just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow.”
It said the service would first be available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. However, it was not available Sunday and there was no indication when it would go live. A Twitter employ, Esther Crawford, told The Associated Press it is coming “soon but it hasn’t launched yet.”Twitter did not respond on Sunday to an email seeking comment on the verified accounts issue and Griffin’s suspension.
Musk later tweeted, “Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world. That’s our mission.”
If the company were to strip current verified users of blue checks — something that hasn’t happened — that could exacerbate disinformation on the platform during Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Like Griffin, some Twitter users have already begun migrating from the platform — Counter Social is another popular alternative — following layoffs that began Friday that reportedly affected about half of Twitter’s 7,500-employee workforce. They fear a breakdown of moderation and verification could create a disinformation free-for-all on what has been the internet’s main conduit for reliable communications from public agencies and other institutions.
Many companies have paused advertising on the platform out of concern it could become more unruly under Musk.
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, sought to assuage such concerns in a tweet Friday. He said the company’s front-line content moderation staff was the group least affected by the job cuts.
Musk tweeted late Friday that there was no choice but to cut jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day.” He did not provide details on the daily losses at Twitter and said employees who lost their jobs were offered three months’ pay as severance.