Watch the Other Hand – Twitter Tells Employees Musk Sale is Going Ahead as Scheduled, Then Company Executives Announce Internal Ministry of Truth to Control Information

by Sundance

Despite the request from prospective purchaser Elon Musk to verify the number of fraudulent accounts supported within the Twitter social media platform, company executives told employees the purchase is going forward regardless of Musk requested verification.

(Bloomberg) – Twitter Inc. executives told employees on Thursday that the $44 billion deal to sell the company to billionaire Elon Musk is moving forward as planned, and that it won’t renegotiate the agreed-upon price of $54.20 per share.

Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top lawyer and head of policy, also told workers at an all-hands meeting that there is “no such thing as a deal being on hold,” according to people who attended the meeting. She was pushing back on claims from Musk over the past week that he is pausing the deal while he learns more about the number of bots and spam accounts on the social-media service. (read more)

Immediately after the executive meeting with employees, and perhaps in a proactive effort to control any content changes to the platform, the executives then announced a new internal “crisis misinformation” team {LINK}.  Essentially new rules that will give Twitter censors new tools and justifications to block and control content.

[TWITTER] – […]  During moments of crisis, establishing whether something is true or false can be exceptionally challenging. To determine whether claims are misleading, we require verification from multiple credible, publicly available sources, including evidence from conflict monitoring groups, humanitarian organizations, open-source investigators, journalists, and more. 

Conversation moves quickly during periods of crisis, and content from accounts with wide reach are most likely to rack up views and engagement. To reduce potential harm, as soon as we have evidence that a claim may be misleading, we won’t amplify or recommend content that is covered by this policy across Twitter – including in the Home timeline, Search, and Explore. In addition, we will prioritize adding warning notices to highly visible Tweets and Tweets from high profile accounts, such as state-affiliated media accounts, verified, official government accounts.

[…] People on Twitter will be required to click through the warning notice to view the Tweet, and the content won’t be amplified or recommended across the service. In addition, Likes, Retweets, and Shares will be disabled.

[…] Content moderation is more than just leaving up or taking down content, and we’ve expanded the range of actions we may take to ensure they’re proportionate to the severity of the potential harm. We’ve found that not amplifying or recommending certain content, adding context through labels, and in severe cases, disabling engagement with the Tweets, are effective ways to mitigate harm. (read more)

This new approach toward information control at Twitter comes a day after the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) said they were pausing the “DHS Disinformation Governance Bureau,” and appears to be a private sector effort by the social media platform to maintain the same purpose.

Put together the two actions by the company appear to be: (1) force Elon Musk into a position of purchasing the company at the previously agreed price regardless of the fraud that may be represented in the company financials; and (2) in case Musk goes ahead anyway, put systems in place to block any attempt to restructure the platform.

While this is only one company amid several; this is a battle inside the social media sphere that highlights just how extreme the control mechanisms are, and the entrenched position of Big Tech to avoid any challenge to their stranglehold on information content.

The ideological war continues.  We have two generals putting their wealth into the game and leading the fight, Donald Trump and Elon Musk.