Elon Musk’s Failed Bid to Takeover & Privatize Twitter is a Small Win for Internet Safety Says UltraViolet
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, July 8, 2022
CONTACT: Anna Zuccaro | anna@unbendablemedia.com
Elon Musk’s Failed Bid to Takeover & Privatize Twitter is a Small Win for Internet Safety Says UltraViolet
Statement from Bridget Todd, communications director at UltraViolet, on reports from Bloomberg that Elon Musk’s advisors formally notified Twitter that he is terminating the merger agreement.
“Since announcing his intention to buy Twitter, Elon Musk has spent the last few months showing us how he would run the platform.
“During that time, he publicly attacked a prominent woman of color in leadership tasked with making the platform safer, opening her up to a flood of harassment, he demanded that Twitter welcome hateful transphobic rhetoric on the platform, and he said he would open the door to continuing to allow Trump to use the platform to spew dangerous lies and foment violence and hate. A Twitter under Musk’s leadership would have ripped open Pandora’s box and reopened the floodgates for hate and baseless conspiracy theories – making the platform, and the country a more dangerous place for all of us but especially for women.
“That’s why today’s news that Musk is backing away from his deal with Twitter is a welcome reprieve for women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community. It’s proof that when we stand up and make our voices heard we can make a difference, and we can defeat disinformation.
“From the beginning, advocacy groups like UltraViolet, Media Matters and Accountable Tech made it clear that Elon Musk only wanted to take over Twitter to advance his right-wing, red-pilled political ideology. We challenged advertisers and major brands to live up to their values and make it clear they wouldn’t support this disinformation campaign – and it worked.
“Because of Musk’s bad business decisions, and embrace of extremism – he is now walking away from the deal defeated. Don’t buy his excuses about bots or spam accounts.
“We celebrate the significance of Elon Musk’s defeat – for our democracy, and in the war against disinformation.”
Earlier this year, UltraViolet released a report card assigning letter grades to social media platforms such as Facebook/Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, and Twitter. Each platform is graded based on current hate speech policies and processes, including the removal of disinformation, threats of violence, white nationalist content, and discrimination based on gender identity, race, and sexual orientation. Twitter recently began beta-testing a COVID-19 reporting function and removed bad actors from the platform, including Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, in response to UltraViolet’s demands.
VIEW THE REPORT HERE: https://weareuv.us/feministnetreport
VIEW THE REPORT CARD HERE: https://weareuv.us/reportcard
# # #