Musk “wanted” to smack Ye after rapper “incited violence.”
Elon Musk on Saturday explained why he suspended Kanye West’s Twitter account on Friday following an anti-Semitic post from the rap mogul. The suspension came just days after Musk allowed West to return to Twitter. A few months earlier, West had been suspended from his account for hate speech against Jews.
Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist” and has vowed to be less restrictive in moderating content than Twitter’s previous leadership. Advertisers, concerned that their brands would appear alongside hateful content, paused their advertising following Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on Oct. 27.
Musk’s reasoning on West’s suspension may shed some light on where he’ll draw the line when moderating content going forward.
West’s account was suspended Friday after he posted a picture of a swastika in a Star of David. Afterward, West repeatedly praised Adolf Hitler while appearing live on the show by far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Infowars program in which he said, “I love Nazis,” which he stressed “did good things too.”
Incitement to violence ‘is against the law’
“At some point you have to say what is incitement to violence because it’s against the law in the US” Musk said Saturday during a live Q&A on Twitter Spaces. “Placing swastikas in a way that is obviously not good is an incitement to violence.”
He added: “I wanted to hit Kanye personally, that definitely incited me to violence. That’s not cool.”
Musk used to tweeted von West: “I tried my best. Despite this, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.”
Musk also said in the Q&A that Apple has “fully resumed” advertising on Twitter, adding that the iPhone maker is the platform’s largest advertiser. He also thanked other advertisers for returning. (Amazon plans according to a tweet on Saturday by a Platformer reporter, citing anonymous sources.)
Musk’s plans to moderate content for Twitter
Musk has fired many Twitter employees involved in content moderation, raising concerns about hateful content rife on the platform.
The company told Reuters this week that it relies heavily on automation to moderate content and favors distribution restrictions over the outright removal of certain speeches.
“Hate speech impressions (tweet count) continue to decline despite significant user growth,” Musk said tweeted. “Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of reach. Negativity should and will get less reach than positivity.”
It was followed by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a London-based nonprofit, which said on Friday that the number of daily insulting tweets was significantly higher than the monthly rate before Musk’s takeover.
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