Twitter CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday that there is no doubt that Twitter has “interfered” in elections prior to his takeover. The “obvious reality” is that Twitter “has interfered in elections” through its content moderation practices, Musk said.
Musk’s assertion came in response to Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, who claims that the platform is less safe under the new boss. While speaking at a Knight Conference on Tuesday, Roth claimed that he resigned from the platform because Musk is running it “like a dictator.”
“One of my limits was if Twitter starts being ruled by dictatorial edict rather than by policy… there’s no longer a need for me in my role, doing what I do,” Roth said, according to Reuters.
As the head of safety, Roth played a key role in a number of the company’s notorious content moderation decisions, including the banning of then-President Trump and the suppression of the New York Post’s report on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“Twitter has shown itself to be not safe for the past 10 years and has lost users’ trust. The past team of ‘trust and safety’ is a disgrace, so it doesn’t have any right to judge what is being done now. They had a chance, but they sold their souls to a corporation,” one Twitter user said in reference to Reuters’ coverage of Roth’s remarks.
“Exactly,” Musk wrote in reply. “The obvious reality, as long-time users know, is that Twitter has failed in trust & safety for a very long time and has interfered in elections.”
Musk did not elaborate on exactly how Twitter interfered, but he has hinted that he will reveal a number of internal company documents and conversations that demonstrate as such. The new boss has promised that “Twitter 2.0 will be far more effective, transparent and even-handed.”
Exactly. The obvious reality, as long-time users know, is that Twitter has failed in trust & safety for a very long time and has interfered in elections.
Twitter 2.0 will be far more effective, transparent and even-handed.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 30, 2022
