Do You Want to Fight Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover? Walk Away

Last week, Elon Musk finalized his acquisition of Twitter, ushering in a new era for social media. The long, complicated saga of the billionaire’s quest to turn the platform into what he thinks it should be has turned an important corner. It’s well known that Musk has long proclaimed himself to be a “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/08/1127689351/elon-musk-calls-himself-a-free-speech-absolutist-what-could-twitter-look-like-un" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">free speech absolutist</a>,” criticizing Twitter for its censorship policies. In a truly unsurprising twist of fate, the company’s new owner quickly <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/27/elon-musk-fired-top-twitter-execs-including-ceo-reports-say/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">moved to fire</a> CEO Parag Agrawal as well as several other top executives. The message could not be clearer; there’s a new boss in town and he wants to shake things up. Musk’s pro-free speech stances elevated him to elite status among the American far-right. To Donald Trump’s base, he represented the hope someday their leader would be allowed to return. However, less than 24 hours after he assumed control of the company, someone else returned to Twitter, or rather another group. Anonymous users who appear to hold beliefs that align with those of neo-Nazis and white supremacists have been exercising their new freedom. According to the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), use of the n-word on Twitter didn’t just start up again, it surged by almost 500% in less than 12 hours. The social media watchdog <a href="https://twitter.com/ncri_io/status/1586007698910646272?cxt=HHwWgMDUiazm0IIsAAAA" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">tweeted</a> that “several posts on 4chan encourage users to amplify derogatory slurs.” This trend didn’t stop in the days that followed. On November 4th, the NCRI <a href="https://twitter.com/ncri_io/status/1588584197610147842?cxt=HHwWhMDQpae65IssAAAA" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">reported a surge</a> in anti-Jewish rhetoric on the platform. “Terms associated with Jew are being tweeted over 5k times per hour,” it confirmed. “The most engaged tweets are overtly antisemitic.” <a href="https://medium.com/my-side-of-the-aisle/if-you-want-to-fight-elon-musks-twitter-takeover-walk-away-7498d41d116">Visit Now</a>