Shonda Rhimes isn’t impressed with Elon Musk’s plans for Twitter, and she isn’t stick around. Best known for creating and writing Grey’s Anatomy, the TV mogul shared what might be her last tweet Saturday, telling her nearly 2 million followers, “Not hanging around for whatever Elon has planned. Bye.”
Musk, a self-described free-speech absolutist, completed his $44 billion takeover of the social media platform on Thursday and promptly fired top executives he had criticized for being too suppressive.
While he was quick to reassure advertisers on Thursday that the platform wouldn’t become a “free-for-all hellscape,” not everyone was convinced. General Motors said it would temporarily pause advertising on Twitter, adding, “We are engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership.”
Advertisers, of course, are not keen on appearing near offensive content, and there’s been a sharp increase in that since Musk took control, with Twitter trolls flooding the platform with racial slurs and Nazi memes.
“The danger here is that in the name of ‘free speech,’ Musk will turn back the clock and make Twitter into a more potent engine of hatred, divisiveness, and misinformation about elections, public health policy, and international affairs,” Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, told the Associated Press.
On Friday, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted, “To be super clear, we have not yet made any changes to Twitter’s content moderation policies.” That followed him tweeting earlier: “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints. No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.”
He also offered glimpses into his thinking about the platform’s future on Friday and early Saturday while replying to Twitter suggestions. When a user noted Facebook has something similar to the content moderation council but still angers both the left the right, Musk replied, “Good point. Being able to select which version of Twitter you want is probably better, much as it would be for a movie maturity rating. The rating of the tweet itself could be self-selected, then modified by user feedback.”
As Musk toys with ideas, however, an increase in hateful content may in the meantime drive some users away from the platform—including prominent ones like Rhimes.
According to the Network Contagion Research Institute, which analyzes social media content and predicts emerging threats, instances of the N-word increased by nearly 500% in the 12 hours immediately after Musk’s takeover was finalized.
Rhimes, an African-American, didn’t elaborate on why she was leaving the platform. But up until now she’s been a prolific user of Twitter, building a large following since joining the platform in November 2008.
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Steve Mollman
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