Twitter owner Elon Musk has fired back at LeBron James after the “woke” NBA star questioned how the tech mogul is managing his newly-acquired social media company.
Philip Lewis of The Huffington Post said:
“Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover sparked a surge in the use of the N-word on the social media platform.
“A social media research group told The Washington Post the use of the slur increased by nearly 500%.”
LeBron James said: “I don’t know Elon Musk and, tbh, I could care less who owns Twitter.
“But I will say that if this is true, I hope he and his people take this very seriously because this is scary AF.
“So many damn unfit people saying hate speech is free speech.”
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 30, 2022
Musk fired back at James with a statement from Twitter’s Head of Safety & Integrity:
“Nearly all of these accounts are inauthentic.
“We’ve taken action to ban the users involved in this trolling campaign — and are going to continue working to address this in the days to come to make Twitter safe and welcoming for everyone.
“Let’s talk for a minute about slurs, hateful conduct, and trolling campaigns.
“Bottom line up front: Twitter’s policies haven’t changed.
“Hateful conduct has no place here.
“And we’re taking steps to put a stop to an organized effort to make people think we have.
“Over the last 48 hours, we’ve seen a small number of accounts post a ton of Tweets that include slurs and other derogatory terms.
“To give you a sense of scale: More than 50,000 Tweets repeatedly using a particular slur came from just 300 accounts.
“Our Rules prohibit Hateful Conduct.
“This includes targeting people with dehumanizing content and slurs.
“This DOESN’T mean we have a list of words that are always banned.
“Context matters.
“For example, our policies are written to protect reclaimed speech.”
Nearly all of these accounts are inauthentic. We’ve taken action to ban the users involved in this trolling campaign — and are going to continue working to address this in the days to come to make Twitter safe and welcoming for everyone. https://t.co/1hUnb1WYPZ
— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) October 30, 2022