Elon Musk has as soon as once more accused Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms Inc. META of utilizing “election integrity” as a guise for censorship.
What Occurred: Musk’s feedback got here in response to a CNBC interview with Meta’s President of International Affairs, Nick Clegg, the place he revealed that the corporate has round 40,000 workers engaged on “security and integrity,” with a funds of $20 billion through the years.
Clegg stated, “We have now round 40,000 individuals engaged on security and integrity on our platforms,” including, “We spend all about $20 billion lately on issues like election integrity, about $5 billion within the final 12 months alone.”
Musk, in response to the publish, commented, “‘Election Integrity’ at Meta is simply their phrase for censorship.”
Why It Issues: This isn’t the primary time Musk has criticized Meta’s censorship practices.
In January final 12 months, Musk said that it constituted a breach of the structure when addressing the publish that includes emails revealing assurances from the Mark Zuckerberg-led firm to the White Home.
The emails in query indicated that Meta was censoring content material deemed “typically true” but not containing actionable misinformation whereas additionally discouraging vaccines.
Nevertheless, in Could 2023, Musk, Musk, who has typically positioned himself as a vocal advocate free of charge speech, turned embroiled in a contentious dispute over Twitter’s censorship practices. The tech billionaire acquired the social media platform for $44 billion in October 2022.
When individuals began questioning the hypocrisy of his actions and statements, the tech mogul pushed again saying, “Please level out the place we had an precise selection and we’ll reverse it.” He was referring to studies about Twitter yielding to censorship calls for made by authoritarian governments.
In the meantime, Meta’s censorship practices have been a topic of concern for some time. In September, Meta’s Twitter-like app, Threads, confronted criticism for blocking normal search phrases, limiting its real-time engagement and consumer attraction.
This newest revelation concerning the firm’s substantial funding in “election integrity” additional fuels the continuing debate concerning the true nature of Meta’s censorship practices.
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Disclaimer: This content material was partially produced with the assistance of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and revealed by Benzinga editors.
Picture courtesy: Anthony Quintano on Flickr
