Accused of non-crime hate incident
As Pearsons is getting ready to attend a Remembrance Sunday event, two police constables from Essex Police come to her door. The police inform her that she had been accused of a non-crime hate incident (NCHI) related to ‘stirring up hatred’ in a post on X a year before. When she asks which post, the constable says he is not allowed to say. When she asks who made the complaint, she is told she is not allowed to know that either.
Pearson: You can’t give me my accuser’s name?”
Police: It’s not ‘the accuser, they’re called ‘the victim’.
Pearson responds:
Today, we are commemorating hundreds of thousands of British men, most of them roughly the age you two are now, who gave their lives so that we could live in a free country, not under the jackboot of tyranny. And you, YOU come here on this sacred day… You know, those soldiers, they could never have imagined that their country, our country, the country they died for, would ever become a place where the police would turn up at the door of a person who has done nothing wrong…
Pearson accuses the police of wasting time and asks them why it has taken a year to come forward, with no response. One of the constables asks for her phone number and email address in case they needed to call her in for an interview; She gives him her email only.
Musk to sue ADL for £22 billion for ‘trying to kill’ X with false anti-semitism claims
In a series of tweets, Musk says he will sue the Anti-Defamation League for $22 billion, which he says is 60% in lost revenue, as a result of the organisation putting pressure on advertisers to stop using the platform with claims that Musk and X is anti-semitic.
To be super clear, I’m pro free speech, but against anti-Semitism of any kind. Since the acquisition, The @ADL has been trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic. Our US advertising revenue is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter! If this continues, we will have no choice but to file a defamation suit against, ironically, the “Anti-Defamation” League. If they lose the defamation suit, we will insist that they drop the the “anti” part of their name, since obviously …
Musk later explains:
Advertisers avoid controversy, so all that is needed for ADL to crush our US & European ad revenue is to make unfounded accusations. They have much less power in Asia, so our ad revenue there is still strong. This “controversy” causes advertisers to “pause”, but that pause is permanent until ADL gives the green light, which they will not do without us agreeing to secretly suspend or shadowban any account they don’t like. That is the relationship they’ve had with X/Twitter for many years. Presumably, they have that with all western search or social media orgs.
Our US advertising revenue is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
When told about a $10.5 million defamation fine awarded against ADL, Musk says that the organisation would be potentially liable for half of X’s revenue:
Interesting. In our case, they would potentially be on the hook for destroying half the value of the company, so roughly $22 billion.
Interesting.
In our case, they would potentially be on the hook for destroying half the value of the company, so roughly $22 billion.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
Cuban: Twitter algorithms designed to help Musk
Cuban accuses Musk of rigging Twitter algorithms to promote his own tweets. He says that because Twitter’s “For You” timeline, which is the first thing users see on the app, ranks tweets by the amount of interaction by a user’s followers, that it make’s Musk’s posts more influential, as he has the most followers, and the most interactions on the app. Cuban still has 8.8 million followers, but worries the algorithm change will affect how he promotes his online pharmacy, Cost Plus Drugs.
I figured I was/am on some Twitter s— list that doesn’t show me to new or existing users as a possible follow. I thought maybe, by paying the annual contract, that would change. It didn’t…It stands to reason that the person with the greatest number of followers will have the greatest influence on the most number of For You timelines. And For You candidates include, as stated above , tweets that people you follow engage with. So who @elonmusk engages with on Twitter has an ENORMOUS impact on what an indeterminable number of people see in their For You Timelines
Oops, I left out possibly the most obvious and important influence to For You timelines.
“What tweets did the people I follow recently engage with “
It stands to reason that the person with the greatest number of followers will have the greatest influence on the most number…
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) May 19, 2023
Trans advocates criticise Twitter policy change
Trans advocates criticise Elon Musk for quietly removing a Twitter policy designed to protect transgender people from harassment. The policy previously forbade users of the social media network from deliberately “misgendering” (referring to someone using pronouns that do not reflect their gender identity) or “deadnaming” (calling a transgender person by the name they were given at birth, rather than the name and gender they now identify with) trans users. An archived version of Twitter’s policy indicates that the rule was scrubbed on April 8 without announcement. GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis:
Twitter’s decision to covertly roll back its longtime policy is the latest example of just how unsafe the company is for users and advertisers alike.
Trans rights group Human Rights Campaign:
This policy change makes Twitter more unsafe for trans and non-binary users and paves the way for outright discrimination. Twitter has an obligation to protect people on the platform, not expose them to hate and vitriol.
This policy change makes Twitter more unsafe for trans and non-binary users and paves the way for outright discrimination.
Twitter has an obligation to protect people on the platform, not expose them to hate and vitriol. https://t.co/0nFvxLjBIQ
— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) April 18, 2023
Musk: Apple is threatening Twitter’s presence on the App Store
After Musk publishes a poll, asking if Apple should publish all censorship actions it has taken that affect its customers…
Apple should publish all censorship actions it has taken that affect its customers
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
…a Twitter user asks if Apple is threatening Twitter’s presence in the App Store or otherwise making moderation demands? Musk:
Yes
Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Musk then directly tweets that Apple has threatened to withhold Twitter from its App store:
Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why
Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
When a Twitter user points out that 97.5% of Apple’s political donations were to the Democratic Party, Musk replies:
Wow, they don’t sound biased at all!
Twitter removes epileptic videos
Twitter removes “#DiscoverMusic campaign” Vine videos that use bright flashing effects that cause epileptic seizures in viewers. Epilepsy Action:
For a huge corporation like Twitter to take that risk was irresponsible.