President Joe Biden has criticized Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, alleging that the platform is “spewing lies.”
Biden made the strong allegations during a fundraiser speech in Chicago on Friday.
“Now what are we all worried about? Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that sends and spews lies all across the world,” Biden said.
“There’s no editors anymore,” the President added. “There’s no editors. How do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?”
Activists are piling the pressure on advertisers to push Musk to commit to censoring speech on the platform.
Musk said on Friday that activists encouraging advertisers to pull out had caused a “massive drop in revenue” but said, “nothing has changed with content moderation.”
On Friday, Twitter laid off thousands of employees. According to current and former employees, some of the people fired were involved in content moderation.
The layoffs have caused the media to express concerns about “misinformation” ahead of Tuesday’s midterms. The platform’s new owner Elon Musk, who is facing substantial company debt in the future and a possible decline of Twitter revenue, said the layoffs were necessary to secure the company’s future finances.
According to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden has been “outspoken about the importance of social media platforms continuing to take steps to reduce hate speech and misinformation.”
Jean-Pierre told reporters earlier on Friday, “That belief extends to Twitter, …to Facebook and any other social media platforms where users can spread misinformation.”
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