US president Joe Biden said on Friday that Elon Musk had purchased a social media platform in Twitter that spews lies across the world.
Twitter laid off half its workforce on Friday but said cuts were smaller in the team responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation, as advertisers pulled spending amid concerns about content moderation.
Mr Biden said at a fundraiser: “And now what are we all worried about: Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that sends – that spews lies all across the world. There’s no editors any more in America. There’s no editors. How do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters earlier that Mr Biden had been clear about the need to reduce hate speech and misinformation.
“That belief extends to Twitter, it extends to Facebook and any other social media platforms where users can spread misinformation,” she said.
Mr Musk has promised to restore free speech while preventing Twitter from descending into a “hellscape.” But major advertisers have expressed apprehension about his takeover for months.
In a tweet, the billionaire said Twitter’s “strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged”.
However, the mass lay-offs at Twitter that diminished several teams, including staff on the company’s safety and misinformation teams, could spell disaster during the US midterm elections next week, experts have warned.
The company has laid off around 50 per cent of its workforce, according to news reports – a figure that Mr Musk and others have not disputed, amounting to an estimated 3,700 people.
The internal chaos unfolding at Twitter, in addition to a sudden lack of staff and resources dedicated to counteracting misinformation, has created ideal conditions for election misinformation to thrive, said Paul Barrett, an expert in disinformation and fake news at New York University.
“Twitter is in the midst of a category 5 hurricane, and that is not a good environment for fostering vigilance when dealing with inevitable attempts to spread falsehoods and hateful content on a very influential platform,” he said.
Mr Musk and other senior figures have sought to reassure the public. Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, Yoel Roth, said in a tweet on Friday that the lay-offs affected “approximately 15%” of the trust and safety team – responsible for combating misinformation – with its “frontline moderation staff experiencing the least impact”.
Mr Musk also stated that he had spoken to civil society leaders at the Anti-Defamation League and the nonprofit Color of Change about “how Twitter will continue to combat hate and harassment and enforce its election integrity policies”.
However, members of those groups claimed on Friday that in laying off the teams responsible for retaining election integrity, Musk had “betray[ed]” those promises. They called on advertisers to pull funding from Twitter as risks around elections continue to mount. – Agencies