| Friend, I’m sure you saw the news: The Twitter board has unanimously approved Elon Musk’s bid to take over the company and take it private.1 What will Musk do with the platform now?
Musk doesn’t have a great track record of protecting free speech. And he’s definitely not an expert on content moderation or civil and human rights. In fact, he regularly attacks his political opponents, supports disinformation spreaders, and rallies a Twitter mob of loyal fans to go after anyone who disagrees with him. What’s more, he’s shown a tendency to protect speech he likes while suppressing speech he doesn’t.
It’s time for Musk to improve his record: We’re calling on him to be accountable to Twitter’s diverse communities and #FixTheFeed.
Tell Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to stop amplifying the worst content on their platforms and #FixTheFeed. We know that companies like Twitter evaluate their business models. In one internal study, Twitter found that it amplified right-wing content more than other content.2 Yet the company has failed to implement sound moderation and enforcement practices to correct course. This year is an election year and people all over the United States will use social media, including Twitter, as a lifeline for information.
The longer companies like Twitter wait to fix the feed, the more harm they inflict on our democracy — and the more likely we are to see election disinformation, violence and hate spread.
Enough is enough: Urge Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to protect their users and #FixTheFeed.
Social-media companies may claim these problems are just too big to solve. But as one of the leaders of the Change the Terms coalition, we’ve outlined exactly the steps these companies need to take to #FixTheFeed: - Fix the Algorithm: Stop promoting the most incendiary, hateful content
- Protect People Equally: Staff up to protect democracy for all, across all languages
- Show Us the Receipts: Disclose your business models and moderation practices
Join with Free Press and dozens of our coalition partners to demand that Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube stop the spread of hateful, violent, misleading and false content across all languages ahead of the 2022 midterm elections and beyond. When we speak together, we cannot be ignored.
Tell these companies: #FixTheFeed.
With gratitude,
Rose, Nora and the rest of the Free Press team
freepress.net
P.S. We’re already seeing the spread of online hate and disinformation about the upcoming midterm elections. Urge social-media companies to crack down on this dangerous content to protect their users and safeguard our democracy.
1. “Musk’s Takeover Is a Huge Step Backward for Twitter,” Free Press, April 25, 2022 2. “Examining Algorithmic Amplification of Political Content on Twitter,” Twitter blog, Oct. 21, 2021  |
