Elon Musk called for an investigation into far-left groups that are reportedly pressuring advertisers on Twitter to boycott the platform if Musk rolls back the platform’s content moderation policies.
“Some of the nation’s biggest brands including Coca-Cola (CCEP), Disney (DIS) and Kraft (KHC) are facing calls to boycott Twitter if the company’s soon-to-be owner, billionaire Elon Musk, rolls back content moderation policies limiting hate speech and election misinformation,” CNN reported. “In a letter sent to brands Tuesday ahead of the 2022 NewFronts digital advertising conference, more than two dozen civil society groups said marketers should secure commitments from Twitter to retain its most critical policies, including on civic integrity and hateful conduct, and threaten to withdraw funding if Twitter does not comply.”
Some of the far-Left groups that signed onto the letter include Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, GLAAD, Media Matters For America, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and the Women’s March.
The letter stated in-part:
As top advertisers on Twitter, your brand risks association with a platform amplifying hate, extremism, health misinformation, and conspiracy theorists. Under Musk’s management, Twitter risks becoming a cesspool of misinformation, with your brand attached, polluting our information ecosystem in a time where trust in institutions and news media is already at an all-time low. Your ad dollars can either fund Musk’s vanity project or hold him to account. We call on you to demand Musk uphold these basic standards of community trust and safety, and to pull your advertising spending from Twitter if they are not.
“Who funds these organizations that want to control your access to information? Let’s investigate …” Musk responded in a tweet. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
The letter comes after Twitter’s board of directors unanimously approved an acquisition by Musk last week in a $44 billion sale valued at $54.20 per share.
“Attacks are coming thick and fast, primarily from the left, which is no surprise, however I should be clear that the right will probably be a little unhappy too,” Musk said last week in reference to the response his purchase of the platform had generated. “My goal is to maximize area under the curve of total human happiness, which means the ~80% of people in the middle.”
Musk added in a separate tweet, “For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally.”
Related: