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Consider This from NPR

Can Black Twitter survive Elon Musk?

Consider This from NPR

NPR

News, Daily News, News Commentary, Society & Culture

4.26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2022

⏱️ 15 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A surge in anti-Semitic and racist tweets, an incoherent rollout of a paid verification service, and thousands of layoffs. Then a scramble to rehire some employees. This is only a couple of weeks into Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter.

It's impossible to deny that Musk is a highly successful businessman who made some high-visibility missteps on the way to Tesla and SpaceX. But unlike those two companies, Twitter is not about goods and services. For millions of users, it's about community. And many feel that Musk will end up destroying these virtual communities.

Disgruntled Twitter users have sparked a mini-movement with the hashtag #TwitterMigration, leaving the platform for the social network Mastodon over concerns about increasing hate speech and misinformation.

But others are defiantly staying put - ready to fight back to sustain the influential communities that have made the platform their home.

Host Michel Martin speaks with Meredith Clark, Associate Professor in Journalism and Communication studies at Northeastern University, and the author of a forthcoming book on Black Twitter.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Elon Musk making big moves as he starts running Twitter,

0:03.5

potentially into the ground.

0:05.8

You know this whole thing happening with Elon Musk and Twitter

0:08.1

reminds me of, I think it was Mike Tyson,

0:10.8

who had that line we said,

0:12.0

everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

0:14.7

It's been only a couple of weeks since billionaire Elon Musk acquired Twitter

0:19.4

and the ensuing, well, chaos has been late night comedy gold.

0:23.2

$44 billion.

0:25.1

Imagine having so much money.

0:27.5

You think it's a good idea to buy hell.

0:31.3

With an hour's of Musk's team closing the $44 billion deal,

0:35.0

anti-Semitic and racist tweets surged on the platform.

0:38.6

A few days later, Musk himself shared a link to a false conspiracy theory

0:42.7

about the violent attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi.

0:46.7

Musk later deleted the link to a right wing site known for pushing fake stories

0:51.2

about left-leaning targets.

0:53.1

Top executives were fired or resigned.

0:56.0

Thousands of employees were let go.

0:58.0

It's estimated that half of Twitter's global workforce was summarily laid off.

1:02.6

A flood of fake accounts resulted from a change in the blue check

1:05.6

verification process that allowed anyone to buy verification

...

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