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In the news: The Musk problem: Why are businesses leaving X?
August 29, 2024
Contributed by: Eve Thomas, Verdict
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Since Elon Musk’s takeover of X – née Twitter – in October 2022, the platform has repeatedly found itself at the centre of controversy. This has resulted in a mass X exodus, as businesses look to distance themselves from Musk’s outspoken and right-leaning views on topics of international importance, from conspiracy theories to US leadership and UK civil unrest.
The latter constitutes the most recent X-related outrage, sparked when Musk posted “civil war is inevitable” in response to a video of UK rioters shared on the platform on 4 August.
The tech tycoon has also faced allegations of inadequate censoring of material on the platform, with some raising concerns that the mogul’s focus on free speech has allowed X users’ feeds to become echo chambers of hate speech instead.
It is a point highlighted by Goran Calic, entrepreneurial leadership chair at the DeGroote School of Business and visiting scholar at Harvard Business School. He tells Verdict: “Musk has publicly announced that he did not purchase X for economic reasons, but instead to protect free speech on a platform he considers to be the internet’s town square.”
Calic points out that, in many ways, X is in fact the modern day town square. It is the first place Biden announced that he would step down, and it remains a space of rumour and outrage.
Read the full article in Verdict.
