US President Joe Biden accuses Twitter of ‘spewing lies’, slams Elon Musk

US President Joe Biden slammed Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter Inc., accusing the social media platform of spreading lies.

Biden made the comments during a fundraiser in Chicago on Friday evening, warning donors about the impact of the November 8 midterm elections on the coming years.

Biden said, “Now what are we all worried about? Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that sends and spews lies all across the world.”

“There’s no editors anymore. How do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?” added Biden.

Musk, who bills himself as a champion of free speech, paid $44 billion for Twitter. He has fired most of the company’s top executives and board members, and has quickly implemented a plan to lay off roughly half of its 7,500 employees.

Civil rights organisations are also increasing their pressure on advertisers to ensure Musk takes steps to prevent the platform from being used to spread hate speech or disinformation.

Musk acknowledged on Friday that concerns about Twitter content moderation had resulted in a “massive drop in revenue,” but claimed that “nothing has changed with content moderation.”

Musk has been looking for ways to reduce expenses and profit from the platform in various ways. One of his ideas is to charge users a monthly subscription fee to be verified on the platform.

Additionally, he suggested that users who paid the $8 monthly fee would have their Tweets prioritised in replies, mentions, and searches. This proposal drew criticism from some users on Twitter who claimed that he was establishing a two-tier system that would favour those who were willing to pay.

Twitter employees had filed a class action lawsuit alleging that the company was violating federal and Californian law by making significant job cuts without providing 60 days’ notice.

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