Shonda Rhimes tells her 1.9 million Twitter followers, ‘Not hanging round for no matter Elon has deliberate. Bye.’

Musk, a self-described free-speech absolutist, accomplished his $44 billion takeover of the social media platform on Thursday and promptly fired prime executives he had criticized for being too suppressive. 

Whereas he was fast to reassure advertisers on Thursday that the platform wouldn’t grow to be a “free-for-all hellscape,” not everybody was satisfied. Common Motors mentioned it might briefly pause promoting on Twitter, including, “We’re participating with Twitter to know the route of the platform beneath their new possession.” 

Advertisers, in fact, are usually not eager on showing close to offensive content material, and there’s been a pointy improve in that since Musk took management, with Twitter trolls flooding the platform with racial slurs and Nazi memes.

“The hazard right here is that within the identify of ‘free speech,’ Musk will flip again the clock and make Twitter right into a stronger engine of hatred, divisiveness, and misinformation about elections, public well being coverage, and worldwide affairs,” Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Heart for Enterprise and Human Rights, informed the Related Press.

On Friday, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted, “To be tremendous clear, we now have not but made any adjustments to Twitter’s content material moderation insurance policies.” That adopted him tweeting earlier: “Twitter might be forming a content material moderation council with extensively numerous viewpoints. No main content material choices or account reinstatements will occur earlier than that council convenes.” 

He additionally supplied glimpses into his occupied with the platform’s future on Friday and early Saturday whereas replying to Twitter options. When a consumer famous Fb has one thing much like the content material moderation council however nonetheless angers each the left the best, Musk replied, “Good level. Having the ability to choose which model of Twitter you need might be higher, a lot as it might be for a film maturity ranking. The ranking of the tweet itself could possibly be self-selected, then modified by consumer suggestions.”

As Musk toys with concepts, nevertheless, a rise in hateful content material might within the meantime drive some customers away from the platform—together with distinguished ones like Rhimes.

In keeping with the Community Contagion Analysis Institute, which analyzes social media content material and predicts rising threats, situations of the N-word elevated by almost 500% within the 12 hours instantly after Musk’s takeover was finalized. 

Rhimes, an African-American, didn’t elaborate on why she was leaving the platform. However up till now she’s been a prolific consumer of Twitter, constructing a big following since becoming a member of the platform in November 2008.