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President Joe Biden took shots at Twitter and its new owner Friday night, calling out Elon Musk by name and the social media company as “an outfit that spews lies all across the world,” during a campaign event in Chicago.
The comments came after Musk rocked the company with layoffs Friday morning, firing hundreds of employees including half of Twitter’s public policy team.
Since Musk took over last week, Twitter users and politicians have voiced concerns about potential changes to the app’s content moderation policies and an increase in the spread of misinformation on the app in the lead up to Tuesday’s midterms.
Musk had yet to respond to Biden’s comments as of late Friday. In a tweet earlier Friday, Musk maintained Twitter’s “strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged.”
Amid the company’s turmoil, Musk has complained of “a massive drop in revenue” in which he blamed “activists groups pressuring advertisers” to pull their ads from the site, accusing them of “trying to destroy free speech in America.”
Musk himself tweeted out a false story about the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, before deleting it.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre also voiced concern about social media being used to disseminate lies and hate Friday, though she declined to comment on Musk or Twitter’s layoffs specifically.
“The President has been outspoken about the importance of social media platforms continuing to take steps to reduce hate speech and misinformation,” Jean-Pierre said. “That belief extends to Twitter, it extends to Facebook and any other social media platforms where users can spread misinformation.”
Jean-Pierre also said Biden supports reforms within the tech sector, and “is concerned about the power of large tech platforms over our everyday lives.”
Source: Politico
