Billionaire CEO Elon Musk has termed Twitter as a “crime scene” and vowed to expose the social media company’s “darkest secrets” in the upcoming days.
Musk, who acquired for $44 billion in October this year, posted: “Twitter is both a social media company and a crime scene.”
Immediately after, he posted another tweet attacking a meme poster showing a gravestone with the words ‘Twitter’s darkest secrets’ written on it. In the half part of the poster features a man labelled as ‘Elon’ holding a shovel in his hand.
Musk, who also heads automatic electric car maker Tesla and SpaceX, has already released Twitter’s internal documents titled ‘Twitter Files’ in two volumes in order to bring more transparency into its functioning. These internal documents show that the social media company under former CEO Jack Dorsey stifled free speech, interfered in the US elections, and curtailed the reach of “disfavoured” accounts and tweets without informing users.
The recently released second edition of ‘Twitter Files’ gave a sneak peak about how some top-level executives built blacklists, curbed discussion on certain topics, and secretly limited the visibility of accounts belonging to conservatives personalities on the social media platform.
In the first edition, independent journalist Matt Taibbi had released the findings of an “investigation” featuring Twitter’s internal communications to reveal its links with political actors. He also revealed how Twitter blocked stories related to the laptop of president Joe Biden’s son Hunter in the run up to the 2020 presidential elections.
In his pursuit to build Twitter the world’s “town square” in true senses, Musk has announced plans to roll out a software update which will let users know if their account is shadow banned and options to file an appeal.
“Twitter is working on a software update that will show your true account status, so you know clearly if you’ve been shadowbanned, the reason why and how to appeal,” Musk had earlier tweeted.
On Sunday, Musk kicked off a controversy by calling to prosecute top US infection expert Anthony Fauci, who headed the US government’s Covid response efforts.
“My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” he posted a tweet, which drew support from prominent US conservatives like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greener whose account was restored as Musk decided to end Twitter’s COVID-19 misinformation policy.
In another tweet, Musk seemed to be criticising the decision of the Biden administration to impose lockdowns as a strategy to contain the spread of Covid infection.