Days after taking over Twitter and a week before the U.S. midterm elections, billionaire Elon Musk has positioned himself as moderator-in-chief of one of the most important social media platforms in American politics.
Musk has said he won’t make major decisions about the content or restoring banned accounts before setting up a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints. But his own behavior as a prolific tweeter has signaled otherwise.
He’s engaged directly with figures on the political right who are appealing for looser restrictions, including a Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state who credits Musk with enabling him to begin tweeting again after his account was briefly suspended Monday.
Musk even changed his profile to “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” — with a photo of himself when he was a toddler holding a telephone. But it is almost impossible for that outside of Twitter to know what strings he is pulling or whose accounts have been suspended: The company has stopped responding to media questions, except for the few that Musk answers by tweet.
Musk’s promised interventions started last week on his first full day as Twitter’s owner. A conservative political podcaster shared examples of the platform allegedly favoring liberals and secretively downgrading conservative voices — a common criticism that Twitter’s previous leaders dismissed as inaccurate. “I will be digging in more today,” Musk responded.
It continued when the daughter of Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, whose provocative critiques of “politically correct” culture and feminism are popular with some right-wing activists, appealed for Musk to restore her father’s account after a tweet about transgender actor Elliot Page that apparently ran afoul of Twitter’s rules on hateful conduct.
“Anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail,” Musk pledged. He had months earlier said in reference to Peterson that Twitter was “going way too far in squashing dissenting opinions.”
One of Musk’s first big moves was an open letter to advertisers — Twitter’s chief revenue source — promising that he would not let Twitter descend into a “free-for-all hellscape” as he follows through with his plans to promote free speech on the platform. And he’s suggesting asking users to pay $8 for a coveted verified blue check mark as a way to diversify revenue.
The check mark has been criticized as a symbol of elitism on the platform. But its primary purpose has been to verify that accounts in the public eye — such as politicians, brands, and journalists — are who they say they are. It’s been a tool to prevent impersonation and help stem the flow of misinformation.
But some still have their worries about Musk opening the platform to a flood of online toxicity that’s bad for their brands. General Motors has said it will suspend advertising on Twitter as it monitors the platform under Musk, and others are facing pressure to review their own plans. On Tuesday, more than three dozen advocacy organizations sent an open letter to Twitter’s top 20 advertisers, calling on them to commit to halting advertising on the platform if Twitter under Musk undermines “brand safety” and guts content moderation.
Over the weekend, the billionaire posted — then deleted — an article that contained baseless rumors about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. And much of his commentary in recent days has been a response to appeals from conservative voices.
In a text exchange with The Associated Press, Mark Finchem, the Republican running to become Arizona’s secretary of state, said his access to the platform was restored quickly after reaching out to Musk via his personal Twitter handle. Asked why his account was suspended, Finchem said: “Perhaps you should reach out to Elon Musk. We were banned for an unknown reason, we reached out to him and 45 minutes later we were reinstated.”
Finchem, who questions the results of the 2020 presidential election and was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has drawn national attention for his statements about election security and his ability to change election rules if he wins the state’s top election post next week.
Musk tweeted Monday evening that he was “Looking into it” in response to a complaint about Finchem’s apparent suspension. The complaint came from attorney Jenna Ellis, who was a legal adviser to former President Donald Trump’s campaign. About 40 minutes later, Finchem posted a “test” tweet on his account, which was followed by a lengthier post thanking Musk for restoring his ability to use the site.
“Thank you @elonmusk for stopping the commie who suspended me from Twitter a week before the election,” Finchem wrote in the Tweet. “Twitter is much better with you at the helm.”
Jared Holt, a senior research manager at The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said big social media companies have typically operated on the whims of their owners. But “that problem is especially glaring when somebody like Elon Musk takes the reins and kind of establishes himself as king of the platform, rather than an owner trying to run a coherent business,” Holt said.
At the same time, Musk has sent mixed signals about his intentions. Despite overt examples of appealing to conservative calls and complaints about Twitter’s policies, there’s also plenty of evidence that the platform’s policies on combating misinformation are still in effect. Separately, Musk has defended Twitter’s ongoing head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, after some conservative users called for his firing over past comments expressing liberal views.
Roth remained on the job this week after other top executives were fired or resigned. And apart from Musk, he appeared to be the chief public voice of Twitter’s content moderation, explaining that the company spent the weekend working to remove a “surge in hateful conduct” following Musk’s takeover.
“We’ve all made some questionable tweets, me more than most, but I want to be clear that I support Yoel,” Musk tweeted in response to a complaint from another conservative commentator. “My sense is that he has high integrity, and we are all entitled to our political beliefs.”
Some longtime Twitter observers have expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of Musk’s planned content moderation council. In part, that’s because Twitter already has a trust and safety advisory council to address moderation questions.
“Truly I can’t imagine how it would differ,” said Danielle Citron, a University of Virginia law professor who sits on the council and has been working with Twitter since 2009 to tackle online harms, such as threats and stalking. “Our council has the full spectrum of views on free speech.”
Citron said she’s still waiting to hear if the council will be having its next meeting, scheduled for the day after the midterms.
Twitter is exploring the option to let users put video content behind a paywall, according to an internal company email obtained by The Washington Post. Mockups suggest users would be able to enable the “Paywalled Video” feature after adding video content to a tweet and then choose from preset prices, such as $1, $2, $5, or $10. Other users would be able to like or retweet the content regardless of whether they’ve paid to view it.
The Washington Post notes that it’s unclear whether the plans predate Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the social media company. In recent years, Twitter has been exploring more non-advertising sources of revenue, including a Super Follows feature that lets users pay for subscriber-only content, and its premium Twitter Blue subscriptions.
The feature
Musk’s purchase of the company appears to have accelerated this pivot. The CEO has publicly announced plans to charge $8 a month to be verified on the social media network; a radical shift for a feature that’s previously been available free of charge for public figures. And according to WaPo, Twitter’s employees have been given a target to launch the new video paywall feature in just one to two weeks.
The tight deadline means that Twitter’s internal review teams have as little as three days to evaluate the risks of charging for video content on the service. These risks include users uploading copyrighted content and charging for it.
There are also questions about how paywalled videos might be used by Twitter’s active porn community. The company is one of the few major social media networks to allow such content, and estimates that around 13 percent of the content posted on its network is NSFW. But allowing users to charge for such content opens the door to difficulties with both advertisers and payment providers, the latter of which have historically been skittish about working with pornography sites. Concerns about the spread of child sexual abuse imagery (CSAM) previously derailed plans by Twitter to launch an OnlyFans-style paid subscription service.
In an expanding exodus of Twitter's top management, officials including its advertising and marketing chiefs left the company in the past few days, according to statements and a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
The departures come after billionaire Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover of the company last week, followed by his firing of CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, Reuters reported, citing sources.
Sarah Personette, who was chief customer officer and ad boss, tweeted on Tuesday that she resigned last week, adding to advertisers' uncertainty over how the social media company will change under Musk.
Chief People and Diversity Officer Dalana Brand announced on Tuesday in a LinkedIn post that she had resigned last week as well. General manager for core technologies Nick Caldwell confirmed his departure on Twitter, changing his profile bio to "former Twitter exec" by Monday night.
Chief marketing officer Leslie Berland, Twitter's head of product Jay Sullivan, and its vice president of global sales, Jean-Philippe Maheu, have also left, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. It was not immediately clear whether they quit or were asked to leave.
Berland tweeted a blue heart but did not give details.
Caldwell declined further comment. The other five did not respond to requests for comment.
Multiple employees who spoke with Reuters said they continue to receive little communication about the future of the company. An all-staff meeting that was scheduled for Wednesday was canceled, following the cancellation by Twitter of a check-in call last week.
Musk's team is meeting with advertisers this week in New York, as the company's increasingly skittish customers raise alarms about the potential for harmful content to appear next to their ads.
Hateful content has skyrocketed since Musk closed the deal. Use of the n-word has increased by nearly 500% on Twitter, said the Network Contagion Research Institute, which identifies "cyber-social threats."
A coalition of more than 40 advocacy organizations including the NAACP and Free Press sent an open letter to Twitter's top 20 advertisers on Tuesday, asking them to pull their ads if Musk guts content moderation on the platform.
Mediabrands, a unit of ad holding company IPG, has advised its clients to pause advertising on Twitter for the next week until the company gives more details about its plans to protect trust and safety on the platform, according to a source familiar with the matter.
IPG works with major advertisers like Coca-Cola.
Musk has attempted to reassure advertisers. "Twitter's commitment to brand safety is unchanged," he tweeted on Monday.
He previously said he would reverse Twitter's ban on former President Donald Trump, who was kicked off because of concerns he could incite further violence after the U.S. Capitol riot last year.