Elton John Quits Twitter After Allowing False Information To “Bloom Unchecked”

Following a change in Twitter’s policies that, in Elton John’s words, “will allow disinformation to flourish unchecked,” he has declared he will no longer use the social media platform.

The 75-year-old artist made his remarks after Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter said that he is offering suspended accounts “amnesty,” which experts believe would lead to an increase in harassment, hate speech, and disinformation.

“All my life, I’ve tried to use music to unite people,” Mr. John wrote on Twitter. I am nevertheless saddened to see how false information is currently being utilized to polarize our world.

“I’ve decided to no longer use Twitter, given their recent policy change which will allow misinformation to flourish unchecked.”

Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner for digital policy, recently reminded Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, that he must strengthen user protection safeguards to prevent Twitter from breaking laws that may result in heavy fines or even a ban in the 27-nation bloc.

The Digital Services Act, a new set of regulations that will go into force in 2019, was informed to Mr. Musk that he must drastically step up his efforts to comply.

In response to growing worries over an increase in hate speech on Twitter, French President Emmanuel Macron met with Mr. Musk this weekend for what he termed a “open and honest discussion.”

The French president shared a picture of his meeting with the billionaire on Twitter while he was in the United States. The image showed the two men seated across from one another at a table in an empty room.

The previous day, Mr. Macron expressed his disapproval of Mr. Musk for loosening up content moderation guidelines, calling it “a big concern.”

After online safety advocates claimed that hate speech on Twitter is increasing under Mr. Musk’s control, despite the billionaire’s claims that it has been declining, they met to discuss the issue.

The Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) called Elon Musk’s recent claim that there have been a third fewer instances of hate speech on Twitter “misleading” because it placed more emphasis on how frequently tweets were seen than how frequently hate speech-containing tweets were actually being posted to the site.