Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center looks at Elon Musk and Twitter only through the lens of whether its fellow right-wingers are allowed to spout hate, misinformation and falsehoods without getting fact-checked or moderated (what it dishonestly calls "censorship"). As non-Musk Twitter executives realize that Twitter being filled with hate and lies is a bad thing, the MRC's Catherine Salgado went on an anti-"censorship" tantrum in an Aug. 10 post:
X (formerly Twitter) CEO Linda Yaccarino boasted August 10 of how her platform’s safety tools can censor content while supposedly allowing free speech.Yaccarino tried to reassure the public that Twitter does in fact still censor so-called “hateful content” when asked about "brand safety" in a CNBC Squawk on the Streetinterview with Co-Anchor Sara Eisen. Yaccarino broadcasted the full interview in a Twitter
Space Thursday. “If it is lawful but it is awful, it’s extraordinarily difficult for you to see it,” Yaccarino bragged, explaining how X censors content and assures advertisers their ads will only appear with content they like. Yet Yaccarino also pretended loyalty to “free expression.”
“By all objective metrics, X is a much healthier and safer platform than it was a year ago,” Yaccarino claimed. “We have built brand safety and content moderation tools that have never existed before at this company.” She specifically cited the new policy that X owner Elon Musk and Yaccarino call “freedom of speech, not reach” as part of this content moderation (i.e. censorship).
The X CEO gleefully announced that big brands “are protected from the risk of being next to that content.” She didn’t seem worried about protecting users’ First Amendment right to free speech.
Salgado was too enraged that right-wing Twitter hate might get monitored under Musk that she didn't mention that Yaccarino is lying -- Twitter regularly places ads by major advertisers next to offensive and hateful content. Others also pointed out how detached from reality Yaccarino's answers were. But Salgado didn't care about those blatant falsehoods; rather, she continued to whine about Yaccarino claiming to act responsibly, and she also lashed out at the interviewer:
Yaccarino was particularly proud to report that, after a post is labeled, 30 percent of users “staggeringly” take it down themselves. “Reducing that hateful content from being seen is one of the best examples of how X is committed to encouraging healthy behavior online,” Yaccarino bragged of the censorship, claiming that “99.9 percent” of impressions on Twitter “are healthy.”
Eisen self-righteously lectured about “conspiracy theories” and hysterically cited Kanye West and Musk himself. Yaccarino then gave a hypocritical nod to free speech. “You might not agree with what everyone is saying,” she told Eisen. “Free expression at its core will really, really only survive when someone you don’t agree with says something you don’t agree with.”
[...]
Unfortunately, Yaccarino’s views are unsurprising since she came to Twitter from woke NBCUniversal and the anti-free speech World Economic Forum.
The MRC has already expressed its hatred of Yaccarino for caring more about making Twitter a sustainable and profitable business than right-wing culture wars.
Heather Moon was outraged that that a Musk-instituted Twitter changed was used to fact-check Musk in an Aug. 18 post, laughably headlined "Did Musk Just Get Censored on His Own Platform?":
In a bold twist, Twitter’s Community Notes censored Elon Musk and had the gall to tell him what he can and cannot do with his own platform.
Community Notes, the crowdsourced fact-checking system for X (formerly known as Twitter) that has been characterized as “censorship by a different name,” took aim at owner Musk’s announcement that he will soon remove X’s block feature. The Note attached to his post, however, claimed that he is forbidden from making such a change.
Proving that no one using X is immune from censorship, the platform applied a Community Note to one of Musk’s own posts.
In his announcement today Musk posted what immediately proved to be one of the most controversial moves he has made since taking over the company. “Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature,’ except for DMs,” he posted.
The Community Notes team quickly came up with a Note rebuking the latest potential change that now appears below Musk’s post. The Note reads: “Elon Musk cannot do this. The feature to block someone on the site is REQUIRED as a social media app to be allowed on the App Store and the Google Play store.” It also provides links to the app guidelines for both the Apple App Store and the Google Playstore as proof.
Moon didn't mention Musk's complete hypocrisy on the issue; after getting into an argument with right-wing actor James Woods via Twitter over removing the block feature, Musk blocked Woods. The MRC thinks Community Notes are just fine when liberals are fact-checked but are tantamount to "censorship" when a conservative (or Musk) gets the same treatment. -- yes, the MRC thinks that fact-checking someone is "censorship." Moon remained committed to the fact-checking-is-censorship narrative by invoking the MRC's made-up and meaningless "secondhand censorship" metric:
Musk has made many changes to X since he purchased it. One of the more controversial changes was a global rollout of what is known as Community Notes in December of 2022. MRC Free Speech America’s CensorTrack recently reported that this new form of censorship caused Secondhand Censorship to soar in the second quarter of 2023.
Luis Cornelio was similarly outraged that Twitter would want to reduce hate and lies in an Aug. 21 post (note his placing of "disinformation" in scare quotes, as if there was no objective definition of it):
The so-called warriors of election “disinformation” could be back in town, just in time for the 2024 presidential election.
X (formerly known as Twitter) is allegedly eying a chief election manipulator to lead its Civic Integrity/Elections Team. Political commentator Kristen Ruby first caught the news, which ignited a wave of criticism aimed at X and its choice to use recruiter Aaron Rodericks. Rodericks apparently voiced support for the Department of Homeland Security’s CISA and the Biden administration’s defunct Disinformation Governance Board through a series of RTs and likes on X.
Rodericks announced the new role on August 11. The listing even alluded to the fact that new hires on the “Civic Integrity/Election Team” may influence election outcomes. “Are you passionate about building innovative products that connect people and enable conversations on a global scale?” X further asked before adding: “Do you want to be part of a dynamic team that influences how the world communicates?” As content moderators of specifically election-related content, how could “Civic Integrity/Election Team” not influence elections?
Does Cornelio not think that people who spread political falsehoods and misinformation are also trying to influence elections? Shouldn't elections be based on factual information and not falsehoods? As usual, Cornelio doesn't explain why hate, lies and misinformation should be allowed to spread unchecked.
Autumn Johnson expressed furter doubt about Twitter changes under Musk in an Aug. 23 post, referring to Musk as an "eccentric billionaire" and not in a good way):
Eccentric billionaire Elon Musk originally said he wanted to purchase Twitter to promote free speech, but times may be changing with the questionable changes he has made since acquiring the platform.
A new change under platform owner Musk’s direction will require users to manually add text to links that they share. Without the added text, the post will only include an image and an overlay of the URL, on “X,” formerly known as Twitter.
Musk acknowledged on Tuesday the seemingly random change by responding to a user’s post detailing the move. “This is coming from me directly,” Musk admitted on X. “Will greatly improve the esthetics.”
MRC Free Speech America has reported on Musk’s questionable changes to the platform since the contentious purchase, including choosing Linda Yaccarino, an anti-free speech former NBCUniversal executive, to be the CEO of the company.
Musk also pushed forward with Twitter Community Notes, a questionable crowdsourced form of fact-checking and censorship.
In November of last year, Musk described X’s speech policy as “freedom of speech, not reach,” indicating that users would be censored for certain views labeled as “hate speech.” Musk never clarified what he believes constitutes so-called “hate speech.”
Johnson didn't explain why she apparently thinks hate speech is subjective and something that is merely "labeled" as such.
