On Wednesday, an X person made an antisemitic submit that accused Jewish individuals of advocating for hatred in opposition to “whites.” Musk replied by writing “you have said the actual truth.”
The claims within the submit have been primarily based on longstanding antisemitic tropes that painting Jewish individuals as secretly controlling the world and having twin allegiances. Whereas some variations of these racist conspiracy theories have existed for hundreds of years, even millennia, their most up-to-date iteration is the “Great Replacement Theory,” which posits that Jewish individuals need individuals of coloration to immigrate to majority white nations so as to completely alter their demographics. A portion of the submit Musk appreciated talked about “hordes of minorities,” an obvious reference to this concept.
Musk’s submit is simply his newest brush with bigotry. Since buying the then-Twitter in October 2022, civil rights teams have accused Musk of allowing hate speech to proliferate on the platform.
In simply the primary two weeks after Musk bought the site, antisemitic posts increased 61%, in accordance with the Council for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a non-profit that tracks hate speech on the web. In August, their claims incensed Musk to the purpose that X filed a lawsuit against the CCDH for allegedly conducting a “scare campaign to drive away advertisers.” For the reason that begin of the Israel-Hamas warfare final month, the CCDH discovered that hate speech on the platform solely worsened. The group launched a report exhibiting that 98% of 200 posts it reported for violating X’s pointers remained on the positioning.
This wasn’t the primary time Musk has threatened authorized motion in opposition to an advocacy group. In September, Musk threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League, the civil rights group that focuses on addressing antisemitism, for “trying to kill” X, he stated. Musk then met with ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, in a gathering that was meant to clear the air. Greenblatt instructed CNBC he left the assembly nonetheless involved however was nonetheless “encouraged.”
Following as much as Wednesday’s unique antisemitic submit, Musk talked about the ADL by title. “The ADL unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel,” Musk wrote in a submit. “This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat. It is not right and needs to stop.”
On Thursday, Greenblatt condemned Musk’s latest feedback. “At a time when antisemitism is exploding in America and surging around the world, it is indisputably dangerous to use one’s influence to validate and promote antisemitic theories,” Greenblatt wrote.
Musk’s newest posts additionally drew condemnation from throughout the enterprise group. Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, who’s now the CEO of software program firm Asana, referred to as on Musk to resign. Wednesday’s submit additionally caught the eye of X’s advertisers, lots of whom had already been cautious about advertising on the platform due to the rampant hate speech and Musk’s conduct. As of Thursday, IBM pulled its advertising from X due to the submit.
This comes after X’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, a longtime advert exec at NBCUniversal, spent months making an attempt to rebuild the platform’s popularity with advertisers. In September, At Vox Media’s Code Conference, Yaccarino said 90% of the highest 100 advertisers had returned to the platform, although she didn’t specify whether or not they have been spending the identical quantity.
Shortly after agreeing with the antisemitic submit on Wednesday, and after the firestorm over it had already began, Musk took to X to defend himself by interacting together with his supporters on the platform “Elon isn’t anti-semitic lmfao [sic],” one X person wrote, utilizing a profane abbreviation for laughter. “Emotions are causing people to lose their minds.” Musk replied to that remark with the “100” emoji, indicating that he agreed.
Musk’s submit from Wednesday stays on X and has not been eliminated.
