Elton John Quits Twitter, Cites ‘Misinformation.’ Elon Musk Asks Him One Question.
Pop star Elton John announced that he was leaving Twitter, claiming that “misinformation” was going to “flourish unchecked” on the site thanks to new company policies.
“All my life I’ve tried to use music to bring people together,” John tweeted on Friday. “Yet it saddens me to see how misinformation is now being used to divide our world. I’ve decided to no longer use Twitter, given their recent change in policy which will allow misinformation to flourish unchecked.”
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.
I’ve decided to no longer use Twitter, given their recent change in policy which will allow misinformation to flourish unchecked.
— Elton John (@eltonofficial) December 9, 2022
“I love your music,” Twitter CEO Elon Musk responded. “Hope you come back. Is there any misinformation in particular that you’re concerned about?”
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
When a Twitter user pointed out that it was possible someone else with a leftist perspective actually wrote the verbiage in John’s tweet, Musk noted that celebrities often don’t write the posts under their name.
“It’s true that most celebrities don’t write their own posts. More should. Way better to hear directly from them,” he replied.
It’s true that most celebrities don’t write their own posts. More should. Way better to hear directly from them.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
One area Musk has changed Twitter’s misinformation policy has been related to the discussion of COVID.
According to an update note posted on Twitter’s blog and “transparency report,” as of November 23, the platform is no longer enforcing policies it used to combat “misleading information” during the COVID pandemic. But there was no formal announcement of a policy change; news broke Tuesday when several conservative users posted screenshots of the updated policy. The policy change is the latest move in Elon Musk’s effort to reform Twitter into a “free speech” platform.
“Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy,” the note reads.
Conservatives shared screenshots of the updated policy Tuesday and celebrated the change by posting facts about COVID-19 that were once deemed “misinformation” by Twitter.
According to CNN, between January 2020 and September 2022, the platform suspended more than 11,000 accounts and took down more than 100,000 individual posts for violating the misinformation policy. Notable users suspended included Republican Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, journalist Alex Berenson, mRNA vaccine researcher Dr. Robert Malone, cardiologist Dr. Peter McCollough, and former San Francisco Giants player Aubrey Huff.
The day after Twitter announced the policy change, CEO Elon Musk announced a blanket amnesty for users suspended from the platform. On November 23, Musk tweeted a poll asking whether or not to unban users that had been permanently suspended. “Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?” he wrote.
More than three million users voted in the poll, and the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of amnesty; nearly three-quarters of voters, 72.4%, voted “yes,” while just 27.6% voted “no.”
“The people have spoken,” Musk wrote after the poll concluded. “Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.”
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