LeBron James, other celebs condemn hate speech spike after Musk Twitter buy

Following Elon Musk‘s takeover of Twitter, hate speech reportedly surged on the platform. Many celebrities have spoken out with concerns regarding the spike in antisemitism, homophobia and racial slurs with Musk at Twitter’s helm.

One of Musk’s most vocal critics is Los Angeles Lakers player LeBron James, who railed against hate speech in a Saturday tweet. The basketball star retweeted a post about the use of the n-word spiking by nearly 500% following Musk’s acquisition, per an article by The Washington Post.

“I dont know Elon Musk and, tbh, I could care less who owns twitter. But I will say that if this is true, I hope he and his people take this very seriously because this is scary AF. So many damn unfit people saying hate speech is free speech,” James wrote in a tweet.

Yvette Nicole Brown, star of the sitcom Community, also referenced the startling statistic in a Sunday post.

“Since ⁦@elonmusk⁩ has taken over @twitter, the use of the N-word is up 500%. Yay, free speech,” Brown tweeted, along with an emoji of a melting smiley face. “Turns out Hate speech is what folks mean when they say ‘free’ speech. Now we ALL know. Imagine being happy that you can freely use slurs. Humanity is broken.”

Many conservatives, such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, have praised the Tesla and SpaceX CEO over his promise to prioritize free speech.

Embattled rapper Kanye West, who’s made a litany of anti-Black and antisemitic statements in recent weeks, has also seen his Twitter account reinstated.

Shortly after taking the reins, Musk ousted several of Twitter’s executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal and the site’s head of legal, policy, trust and safety, Vijaya Gadde. Many have heralded the change-up as a sign that the site will be more lax in its content moderation, but Musk has claimed that the platform won’t turn into a “free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences.”

Other celebs have also criticized Musk.

The Watcher actor Mia Farrow posted on Twitter about her concerns over the increase in “profanity” plus a “torrent of racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, homophobic, and transphobic hate speech.”

“Elon Musk has spent three days on the job and already the trolls are flooding Twitter with hate speech,” tweeted Joe Madison, a radio talk show host known as “The Black Eagle.”

Still, other users argued that Twitter already had issues with hate speech before Musk had come into the picture.

“All these things listed literally happen on Twitter every day & rarely stopped,” tweeted model Sarah Idan, who represented Iraq in the 2017 Miss Universe Pageant, on Friday. “I’ve gotten death threats, harassments etc & Twitter never did anything about the accounts they just asked me to block them or mute them.”

Newsweek has reached out to Twitter and representatives of Musk for comment.