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Elon Musk’s Twitter Purchase Could Threaten Press Freedom, says IFJ
The acquisition, which has already been ‘green lighted’ by the Board of Directors of the social network , “threatens pluralism and freedom of the press and creates a favorable terrain for disinformation”, says the federation, which represents 600,000 journalists from 187 unions and associations in 146 countries. twitter elon musk
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and the aerospace group SpaceX, “has long been known to criticize Twitter’s content moderation policies and has regularly called for the social network to be less regulated,” the Brussels-based federation said in a statement. .
The purchase of Twitter, which has more than 400 million users worldwide, “means that it will be owned by a single person instead of having several shareholders”, said the IFJ, expressing concern about this concentration of power.
The IFJ also fears that less content moderation could “increase misinformation and threaten quality journalism”.
“We are concerned that Elon Musk’s plans for Twitter are going in the wrong direction, exacerbating the possibilities of attacking journalists and threatening the anonymity of users,” said IJF Secretary General Anthony Bellanger, quoted in the statement.
Twitter announced on Monday that it had accepted an offer to buy businessman Elon Musk worth US$44 billion, around €41 billion.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, initially offered $43 billion for the company, later saying he had secured $46.5 billion in financing for the acquisition. twitter elon musk
Twitter users about Elon Musk “free speech”:
Elon Musk keeps tweeting that he loves free speech. So here’s a thread with just a few of the countless examples showing he couldn’t care about it less (????)
— Read Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell (@JoshuaPotash) April 26, 2022