High-profile liberal figures are collaborating to lobby corporate advertisers to boycott Twitter if soon-to-be-owner Elon Musk brings in his promised policy of unrestrained free speech to the platform..Twenty-six NGOs and advocacy groups penned a letter telling of their frustrations about Musk’s plan to allow freedom of expression on the social media platform.Musk responded to the letter inquiring about the authors’ source funding. The letter had been written by a number of different groups, including George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, NGOs founded by former Clinton and Obama administration staffers, wealthy Democrat foundation donors, labour unions, and even the governments of some European nations. “Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter will further toxify our information ecosystem and be a direct threat to public safety, especially among those already most vulnerable and marginalized,” the alliance wrote.They warned businesses in the letter advertising on Twitter “risks association with a platform amplifying hate, extremism, health misinformation, and conspiracy theorists.’ “Under Musk’s management, Twitter risks becoming a cesspool of misinformation, with your brand attached, polluting our information ecosystem in a time where trust in institutions and news media is already at an all-time low,” the authors said.“Your ad dollars can either fund Musk’s vanity project or hold him to account. We call on you to demand Musk uphold these basic standards of community trust and safety, and to pull your advertising spending from Twitter, if they are not.”.Musk, in response to the letter, tweeted: “Who funds these organizations that want to control your access to information? Let’s investigate.” Musk added: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” In April, the Twitter board accepted Musk’s $44-billion offer to buy out the company. Musk will take the social media platform into private ownership with the goal of liberating it from what many people consider unreasonable censorship and the banning of its users.“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement included in the press release announcing the $44 billion deal.“I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”Amanda Brown is a reporter with the Western Standardabrown@westernstandard.newsTwitter: @WS_JournoAmanda
