Article Published: October 6, 2022
Written By: Levi Sumagaysay for MarketWatch
Right-wing figures are looking to Musk as their 'free-speech' champion and celebrated the news when he offered to buy Twitter in April
Misinformation and disinformation proliferated on Facebook META, +2.11% — which is majority controlled by billionaire co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg — before, during and after the 2016 elections. The company has since taken steps to combat fake news on its platform, and has also banned Trump and others.
“Twitter reaches more than just its users,” said Jelani Drew-Davi, campaigns director for Kairos Action, an organization that works on campaigns that involve technology, racial justice and democracy. “It’s a place of huge global and political significance.”
Referring to the the deadly “Unite the Right” white-supremacist rally in 2017 that was largely organized online, Drew-Davi said online abuse can “leak” offline: “Before Charlottesville, I didn’t think I realized how much power the internet had.”
A year after the rally, Kairos, Color of Change and other advocacy groups formed or joined Change the Terms, a coalition to push online platforms to step up their efforts against hate, abuse and misinformation, which they said have resulted in changes at Twitter and elsewhere.
Read full article here.