Friend,

Funnily enough, Elon Musk admitted two things this morning:

1. Our campaign pressuring Twitter advertisers is working
2. He doesn’t understand what free speech is

We are winning — but we are also up against the literal richest person on Earth. Could you rush a donation to Free Press Action today to help fuel this urgent campaign?

This morning our #StopToxicTwitter coalition — which has grown to over 60 groups, including the #StopHateforProfit coalition that was behind the massive Facebook advertising boycott in 2020 — called for a complete advertising freeze on Twitter.

The dominoes are starting to fall. Major brands including Audi, General Mills, Pfizer and Volkswagen have already said they will pause advertisements.

But things at Twitter are a mess. This morning, Musk instituted massive layoffs — and his priorities are really showing here. Among those fired were Twitter’s VP of diversity, content moderators and the entire human rights team. He also disbanded the entire Machine Learning, Ethics, Transparency and Accountability team, which was studying algorithmic amplification and pushing for algorithmic transparency and algorithmic choice.¹

And while we’ve been in rapid-response mode around Twitter for the last week, we know that Meta, TikTok and YouTube have their own problems — including tons of election disinformation that could affect the midterms next Tuesday. We need to continue this work to address the spread of hate and disinfo across all platforms — can you rush a donation to us today?

Thank you so much for your support,

Candace, Nora and the rest of the Free Press Action team
freepress.net

1. “Elon Musk Fires Twitter Employees Worldwide,” Politico, Nov. 4, 2022