New Delhi: Elon Musk continues to hit the headlines.
Twitter CEO has claimed that the United States Government agencies had sought suspension of about 2,50,000 Twitter accounts, and these included journalists and Canadian officials.
“U.S. govt agency demanded suspension of 250k accounts, including journalists and Canadian officials,” the business magnate had tweeted.
There has been enough U.S. domestic politics vis-a-vis Musk taking over the much-popular microblogging social network. Republican lawmakers in the US Congress, such as Jim Jordan, Yvette Herrell and Marsha Blackburn, praised the takeover calling it a restoration of free speech, while Democratic lawmakers criticised Musk and the buyout.
The alleged rising and consistent pressure on Twitter to work in sync with the US Congress to hunt for Russian ‘meddling’ on Twitter was revealed by journalist Matt Taibbi in “Twitter Files”.
The Global Engagement Center is described by Taibbi as “a fledgling analytic/intelligence arm of the State Department” was out in front of the audience after it was reported by the media with a list of “suspect accounts”. These were termed “Russian personas and proxies.”
Twitter’s task force to hunt Russian influence on the platform displayed “no coordinated” efforts.
According to the journalist Matt Taibbi, the accounts were described with specific criteria, “Describing the coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon,’ ‘blaming “research conducted at the Wuhan institute,’ and ‘attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA.”
Fox News describes Elon Musk as a multi-billionaire technology entrepreneur and investor known for being the founder and chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla Inc.
He is considered one of his generation’s most significant technology and space travel innovators.
Former US President Donald Trump had expressed approval of the Twitter buyout deal but stated that he would not rejoin the platform, even if he is unbanned. Musk later indicated his intention to reverse Twitter’s ban on Trump.Mexican President Lopez Obrador stated that he hoped Musk would rid Twitter of “the corruption that’s there, manipulation with bots”.
Under the US Government pressure, Twitter went on to suspend nearly 2,50,000 accounts, including accounts tied to journalists, some questioning the pandemic’s origins, and accounts that followed “two or more” Chinese diplomatic accounts reported by Fox News.
Elon Musk, also the CEO of car maker Tesla in December 2022, lost the world’s richest man tag.
Musk was knocked off the top spot on Forbes’ billionaire list after Tesla shares fell 6 per cent, shaving $7.4 billion off Musk’s fortune, Forbes reported. He is now the second richest person behind Bernard Arnault, the co-founder and CEO of French luxury conglomerate LVMH.
Earlier in December 2022, Musk, in a tweet, took a jibe by using gender pronouns and used it to criticise Anthony Fauci, calling for his prosecution.
Anthony Fauci, the US infectious disease expert, faced a lot of flak due to his strict COVID measures policies, including mandatory masks, social distancing, isolation, etc. He came into the limelight after he took the front seat in COVID management in the USA. However, he even faced death threats for doing his job during the pandemic.
Reports say Musk has already released many shocking internal Twitter conversation which he has named “Twitter Files” claiming that the information discloses the platform’s previous efforts to suppress free speech, especially from conservative voices.
