On Wednesday, an X person made an antisemitic publish that accused Jewish folks of advocating for hatred towards “whites.” Musk replied by writing “you have said the actual truth.”
The claims within the publish had been based mostly on longstanding antisemitic tropes that painting Jewish folks 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 folks need folks of shade to immigrate to majority white nations in an effort to completely alter their demographics. A portion of the publish Musk appreciated talked about “hordes of minorities,” an obvious reference to this idea.
Musk’s publish is simply his newest brush with bigotry. Since buying the then-Twitter in October 2022, civil rights teams have accused Musk of permitting hate speech to proliferate on the platform.
In simply the primary two weeks after Musk purchased the positioning, antisemitic posts elevated 61%, in line 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 towards the CCDH for allegedly conducting a “scare campaign to drive away advertisers.” For the reason that begin of the Israel-Hamas battle final month, the CCDH discovered that hate speech on the platform solely worsened. The group launched a report displaying that 98% of 200 posts it reported for violating X’s tips remained on the positioning.
This wasn’t the primary time Musk has threatened authorized motion towards 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 publish, Musk talked about the ADL by identify. “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 publish. “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 current 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 neighborhood. Fb cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, who’s now the CEO of software program firm Asana, referred to as on Musk to resign. Wednesday’s publish additionally caught the eye of X’s advertisers, a lot of whom had already been cautious about advertising on the platform due to the rampant hate speech and Musk’s habits. As of Thursday, IBM pulled its promoting from X due to the publish.
This comes after X’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, a longtime advert exec at NBCUniversal, spent months attempting to rebuild the platform’s fame with advertisers. In September, At Vox Media’s Code Convention, Yaccarino stated 90% of the highest 100 advertisers had returned to the platform, although she didn’t specify whether or not they had been spending the identical quantity.
Shortly after agreeing with the antisemitic publish on Wednesday, and after the firestorm over it had already began, Musk took to X to defend himself by interacting along 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 publish from Wednesday stays on X and has not been eliminated.