'The horror'! Reuters reports why there's a panic among some Twitter employees

Doug P. | 10:27 AM on April 07, 2022

A few days ago it was reported that Elon Musk had acquired a nearly ten percent stake in Twitter. The next day it was announced that the Tesla founder was on the board of directors. Today Reuters is reporting that there’s “panic” amongst some Twitter employees:

News of Tesla CEO Elon Musk taking a board seat at Twitter has some employees panicking over the future of the social media firm's ability to moderate content, company insiders told @Reuters https://t.co/60IyXjB4Ad

— Reuters (@Reuters) April 7, 2022

Twitter’s “ability to moderate content”? That’s a good one.

“Oh no it will be harder to censor information and silence people!”

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡 pic.twitter.com/wqobnaxVxR

— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) April 7, 2022

You mean they won’t be able to target certain people they disagree with for writing pretty tame stuff while allowing horrible people they do agree with to tweet horrible stuff? The horror. https://t.co/QeYwbPCLta

— The🐰FOO (@PolitiBunny) April 7, 2022

Reuters reports that the employees they spoke to are concerned Musk’s arrival could have a negative impact on their efforts to keep the discourse on the platform “healthy”:

Despite Twitter’s reiteration this week that the board does not make policy decisions, four Twitter employees who spoke with Reuters said they were concerned about Musk’s ability to influence the company’s policies on abusive users and harmful content.

With Musk on the board, the employees said his views on moderation could weaken years-long efforts to make Twitter a place of healthy discourse, and might allow trolling and mob attacks to flourish.

“Moderate content” needs to be said with the most exaggerated finger quotes possible.