Benjamin Netanyahu and Elon Musk photo credit: Avi Ohayon (GPO)
Elon Musk is learning the hard way that in real life there really are consequences for saying horrible things and for being an all-around jerk. His Twitter messaging service is now in big trouble as big name companies like Apple, Disney and IBM are suspending their ad campaigns. This is because of things that Musk has said as well as his failure to do anything about the proliferation of anti-Semitic posts on Twitter, as well as other types of hate speech.
The Guardian reported that Warner Bros, Paramount, Sony Pictures, and Comcast/NBCUniversal are all also planning on taking action after Elon Musk agreed last week with a rather reprehensible tweet.
The Tweet in question read, “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
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“I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations,” it added, “coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.”
To this Elin Musk responded, “You have said the actual truth.”
But on Saturday Elon Musk said he will now have Twitter censor any posts that accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza or that use the phrase “from the river to the sea” which means that Israel should be destroyed.
“At risk of stating the obvious, anyone advocating the genocide of *any* group will be suspended from this platform,” tweeted Musk.
“As I said earlier this week, ‘decolonization,’ ‘from the river to the sea, and similar euphemisms necessarily imply genocide,” he added. “Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension.”
“Yes, ‘decolonization, necessarily implies a Jewish genocide, thus it is unacceptable to any reasonable person,” said Elon Musk.
Jonathon Greenblatt, head of the Ant-Defamation League, appreciated Musk’s comments responding, “This is an important and welcome move by Elon Musk. I appreciate this leadership in fighting hate.”
Elon Musk notoriously removed many restrictions that Twitter held regarding the prohibition of fake news reports and hate speech on the social media service after he bought the company in 2020 for $44 billion. But now he allows Hamas to spread disinformation and show heinous videos of their victims being torn apart.
In September Jewish leaders from around the world signed on to an open letter condemning Musk for allowing the proliferation of antisemitism on Twitter. The group calls itself “X Out Hate.”
That came after Elon Musk went after the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Musk said in September he might sue the organization because… well because he is not all there. Specifically, Musk is accused the ADL of causing his Twitter to lose advertising money because the group has been protesting the social media for allowing the proliferation of anti-Semitic and racist posts.
Elon Musk charged that the ADL is “trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic.” He also alleged that Twitter’s US advertising revenue is down 60%, “primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!”
“The ADL, because they are so aggressive in their demands to ban social media accounts for even minor infractions, are ironically the biggest generators of anti-Semitism on this platform!” charged Elon Musk.
