Originally published August 7, 2023 6:00 pm PDT
X owner Elon Musk said over the weekend that his company would stand up for people who are punished by their employers for things they post on his social media platform.
QUICK FACTS:
- Businessman and X CEO Elon Musk warned over the weekend that any company punishing its employees for posting on the social media platform would face consequences.
- “If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill,” Musk said. “No limit. Please let us know.”
- X also filed a lawsuit earlier last week against a non-profit organization, accusing it of unlawfully accessing private data and highlighting certain posts to show a climb in hate speech on the social media platform since Musk took ownership.
- The company claimed the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a British non-profit that researches “online hate and disinformation,” orchestrated a “scare campaign to drive away advertisers from the X platform.”
- “CCDH has done this by engaging in a series of unlawful acts designed to improperly gain access to protected X Corp. data, needed by CCDH so that it could cherry-pick from the hundreds of millions of posts made each day on X and falsely claim it had statistical support showing the platform is overwhelmed with harmful content,” the lawsuit read.
- The complaint came just hours after a letter from X attorney Alex Spiro threatened legal action against CCDH made headlines.
- Spiro claimed the center made “a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically.”
X CEO ELON MUSK ON FIGHTING COMPANIES WHO HAVE PUNISHED EMPLOYEES OVER SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS:
“And we won’t just sue, it will be extremely loud and we will go after the boards of directors of the companies too,” Musk said.
BACKGROUND:
- Earlier last month, Musk officially announced that Twitter was undergoing a complete rebranding, including a new name and logo.
- Court documents revealed earlier this year that Twitter merged with a newly formed group called X Corp., and relocated to Nevada.
- Musk also tweeted a cryptic “X” in April 2023, not providing any context or further information.
- “And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk said at the time.
- When the businessman acquired the social media company in November 2022, he said addressing the issue of child sexual exploitation content was “Priority #1.”
- Previously, Twitter did not put forth any real effort into removing content that exploits sexualized content of children.
- The Twitter chief criticized previous management for not taking the issue seriously and blames their lack of action on the frequency of these posts allowed on the site.
- Musk explained that the primary hashtags that target CSE have been taken down from the platform and he plans to do more to ensure the company stayed clear of such content.
