Twitter owner Elon Musk has accused a BBC reporter of lying during an interview in a row over whether incidents of hate speech are increasing on the social network. The Mail has the story.
Mr. Musk was asked by U.S. tech journalist James Clayton how he would respond to claims that there are not enough staff at Twitter to police rising hateful content.
But he challenged the reporter to give him examples of such content – and when Mr. Clayton declined to do so, Mr. Musk accused him of spreading a “false” claim.
During a wide-ranging discussion at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, Mr. Musk also said that Twitter had “four months to live” when he bought the firm. He insisted it needed to cut costs to save it from bankruptcy and confirmed that about 80% of its staff have been axed since he took over last October.
And, explaining the last-minute nature of the interview – for which Mr. Clayton is said to have had only 20 minutes to prepare – Mr Musk later tweeted: “I said BBC could come Twitter, then, to my surprise, a reporter shows up.” Mr. Musk also described the interview as “penetrating deep and hard”.
Speaking during the chat, Mr. Clayton asked Mr. Musk: “We’ve spoken to people very recently who were involved in moderation and they just say there’s not enough people to police this stuff, particularly around hate speech in the company. Is that something that you want to address?”
Mr. Musk replied: “What hate speech are you talking about? I mean, you use Twitter. Do you see a rise in hate speech? Just a personal anecdote? I don’t.”
And Mr. Clayton said: “Personally, for you, I would say I get more of that kind of content, yeah, personally. But I’m not going to talk for the rest of Twitter.”
Mr. Musk then asked him to “describe a hateful thing”, and Mr. Clayton said: “Well, yeah, you know, content that would solicit a reaction, something that is slightly racist, slightly sexist.”
Mr. Musk then asked Mr. Clayton whether he thinks that “if something is slightly sexist it should be banned”. Mr. Clayton denied this was the case, but Mr. Musk pressed him to give specific examples.
Mr. Clayton then said: “Honestly, I don’t… I don’t actually use that feed anymore because I just don’t particularly like it. And actually a lot of people are quite similar. I only look at my followers.”
The Twitter owner said: “I’m asking for one example and you can’t give a single one…. I say sir that you don’t know what you are talking about. You cannot give me a single example of hateful content, not even one tweet. And yet you claimed that hateful content was high. That is false, you just lied.”
But Mr. Clayton said there were “many organisations” that would say hateful posts on Twitter were on the rise, such as the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, before moving on to discuss Covid misinformation.
MailOnline contacted the BBC to establish whether it will be responding to Mr. Musk’s claims that Mr. Clayton lied, but a spokesman said: “We won’t be commenting on this.”
Today, Mr. Musk retweeted a post by user @TexasLindsay_ which said he had “shut down this pro-censorship BBC reporter and left him scrambling on how to justify his own questions on misinformation and the supposed rise in hate speech”. Above this post, Mr. Musk wrote: “Penetrating deep & hard with @BBC.”
Worth reading in full.
Musk also accused the BBC of covering up the side effects of Covid vaccinations and spreading misinformation about masks. He said:
Does the BBC hold itself at all responsible for misinformation regarding masking and the side effects of vaccinations. And not reporting on that at all? And what about the fact that the BBC was put under pressure by the British government to change editorial policy?
The BBC’s own special ‘Disinformation Correspondent’ Marianna Spring has been carrying on some kind of weird vendetta against Musk by writing a string of articles mainly about herself and citing some dubious data supposedly showing that she has been subject to increased abuse since Musk took over, but which in fact mainly show she gets more negative tweets when she makes controversial BBC programmes.
So Musk has good cause to criticise the BBC for its coverage of Twitter.
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This is so retro-cool….deja vu all over again….2005…..Great!….Not…….
Is Gordon Brown going to make a come back as well?
Farage’s first speech: ‘Mr Speaker….Who are you?’
Private Fraser knew a thing or two.
“…but anyone who didn’t see this coming has more subsidies than sense.”
It’s what our American cousins call bait and switch.
Congestion charge, ULEZ are huge revenue sources for the Council to provide cash to splurge on bribes and insane initiatives and projects.
Then there is the loss of Excise Duty and VAT on fuel and Road Fund Licence revenue to be replaced when/if motorists switch to BEVs.
The latter has already been addressed with BEV owners having to pay Road Fund Licence after 12 months.
They can look forward to either pay-per-mile or taxes on their electricity charges.
Poor wee lambs.
Just wrote near on the same as you
They already pay 20% VAT on away from home charging, but with the type of metering required they could increase that at home as well for many of the EV owners, instead of 5% on whatever charge rate they use. Technically possible for special rates to be applied at certain purposes and times of day as well (not that I’m advocating the use of “smart” meters etc).
Don’t forget Excise Duty. VAT is recoverable for VAT registered businesses but not Excise Duty which makes up a substantial part of tax revenue from motor fuels.
When all business vehicles are electric (Grin.), the Exchequer will have to make up that loss somehow.
Did Quentin Wilson and all the other ev evangelist believe their private slice of tax payer subsides were going to stretch on indefinitely?
And.. they’ll have to pay full road tax this year too! ..And, pay per mile in the near future, thats what all those cameras are for!
How do these net zero braindeads think you pay for infrastructure?..pixie wishes and fairy dust!
“thats what all those cameras are for!”
You know the £37 billion “spaffed” on Track and Trace? Well here is where it went.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Worst air in London
The sooner we get regular power cuts, the better. Let the anger build up.
They call it pushing the envelope. They push and if they meet no resistance they push some more. If resistance comes they pull back a bit and then attack with renewed ferocity. Rather like a constrictor snake or the WHO. We seem to exist in the naive world of little victories and such a view entirely misreads the nature of a predatory system.
Just like the Constrictor snake they do speak in forked tongues!
Which raises the question: will TfL apply such charges to buses and cabs as well? Many of those have changed to electric, so they probably won’t like it either, except by increasing the fares etc to cover it.
Don’t you worry they will be sticking a meter on your mouth soon. You had better start practicing yoga or chi kung or such like because every breath is going to cost you. And you have a bloody cheek whingeing given that you are lucky to be alive after the release of the bioweapon. If you buy an appliance and you see the word ‘smart’ in the schtick then it is probably best to avoid it. Just like it is better not to use cards when paying for things. I’ve even seen people in shops paying for things with their phones which seems crazy to me.
More should join ABD Alliance for British drivers. If they start handing out AK47S I’m up for that because things are going to get serious.
UK Column did a good segment on Wednesday’s show about the Constitution and the importance of Jury Nullification. Jurors have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience. This lately has been used by JSO but a stopped clock is right twice per day:https://defendourjuries.org/
I never stopped loving my diesel.
We’ll be using oil for a long, long, long time to come.
I forget his name some American academic who wrote a book about how these restrictions on pollution (designed to target industry) – they are always designed to keep the population in check and to keep the disparity between their wealth and ours. It is deeper than just global warming. It sounds rather bleak but they really have an agenda to wipe us all out.
As EV’s are as toxic as hell, I would charge them more.
England has promised to be the first and foremost so it is good to see the English taking charge, The sort of people who did well in their A levels and went to university in England. I can see it now the whole picture. At the time I thought otherwise and they thought otherwise. England will always be a wild land regardless of London. And people in other countries take inspiraton from our ripping up of ULEZ cameras.
My old man said follow the (Mili)band and don’t dilly dally on the way.
Off when went me meter with me old readings on it.
In came the smart one with dynamic pricing innit.
But I dillied and dallied, dallied and dillied
Lost me way and voted for the reds.
Well you can’t trust the labour with your bread and honey
When you cannot heat your home.
…and full excise duty coming for BEV owners next year too!
Recent measurements by Brown Car Guy, indicate that the most polluted transport in London is the Tube system, where air quality is miles higher than the alleged “Limit” for roads. Khan is undoubtedly aware of this but the Tube is not closed down. This is a case of massive “doublethink” for political reasons!
“Policies are intended to clear the roads and transform society….”
We know that’s the plan. They’ve made no attempt to hide it; in fact they’re crowing about it.
I have no sympathy for the fools who were suckered into getting an EV thinking they were safe and wouldn’t be made to pay for the “crime” of owning a car. They’re not; they’re no safer than the rest of us who have a bit more common sense and are refusing to meekly go along with the coercion.
Well, duh. It’s called a congestion charge – not an emission charge. They have been very honest from the start of the green agenda, and there is no need to invoke conspiracy theory. But there’s none so visually impaired as those who will not see, as they say.