(LifeSiteNews) — Elon Musk put a BBC journalist on the spot during an interview released Tuesday night, calling him out for accusing Musk’s Twitter of facilitating a rise in “hate speech” while being unable to name a single example of such content.
“We’ve spoken to people very recently who were involved in moderation and they just say there are not enough people to police this stuff, particularly around hate speech in the company,” BBC tech reporter James Clayton said to Musk. “Is that something that you want to address?”
BBC reporter claims there’s more “hateful” content on Twitter since takeover by @elonmusk but can’t give a single example. Amazing exchange.
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) April 12, 2023
The Tesla and SpaceX founder, who purchased Big Tech platform Twitter last year, urged Clayton to go into more detail about what he meant by “hate speech,” asking him whether it’s “just content you don’t like” and pushing him to “describe a hateful thing.”
“Yeah, you know just, content will solicit a reaction that may include something slightly racist or slightly sexist, those kinds of things,” Clayton answered.
Musk countered by asking whether, in the journalist’s own words, a tweet that is “slightly sexist” ought to therefore be banned, something Clayton backed away from.
“I’m just trying to understand what you mean by hateful content,” Musk said. “I’m asking for specific examples. And you just said that if something is ‘slightly sexist,’ that’s hateful content. And so does that mean that it should be banned?”
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Clayton declined to answer directly, but asserted that his Twitter feed has featured “slightly more” so-called “hateful content” since Musk took over the company.
“That’s why I’m asking for examples,” Musk persisted. “Can you name one example?”
“I honestly don’t … honestly, I’ll tell you why,” Clayton said, going on to explain that he no longer uses Twitter’s “For You” feed and therefore no longer sees the allegedly objectionable content.
“Well hang on a second, you said you’ve seen more hateful content but you can’t name a single example, not even one,” Musk pushed back.
Clayton continued to be unable to give a specific example, to which Musk retorted, “Then I say, sir, that you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You can’t give me a single example of hateful content. Not even one tweet,” Musk continued. “And yet you claimed that the hateful content was high. That’s false. You just lied.”
Clayton rejected Musk’s accusation, going on to assert that the rise in hate speech on Twitter has been cataloged by research conducted by institutions such as the U.K.’s Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), which reports an increase in “hate speech,” especially antisemitic content, on Twitter since Musk’s takeover.
According to the ISD, a study conducted with CASM Technology found “a sustained 2x rise in English-language antisemitic speech since Musk took over Twitter.”
Among other criteria, the study pointed to content criticizing globalist political donor George Soros as “plausibly antisemitic.” Such tweets, according to the study, might reference Soros’ well-documented funding of Democrats, his enabling of the spread of crime through backing soft-on-crime progressive district attorneys, and his working in collaboration with other “globalists” to, according to the study’s characterization, “destroy America, Christians, Western morality, or the entire world.” The study acknowledged that some anti-Soros tweets simply had to do with “his support for liberal causes,” while others utilized “tropes of Jewish elites ‘controlling’ politicians.”
Meanwhile, though billing itself as a “fiercely independent global organisation dedicated to powering solutions to extremism, hate and disinformation,” the ISD receives funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, YouTube, and numerous government agencies including the U.S. Department for Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. State Department.
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And hate speech wasn’t the only topic about which Musk turned the tables on the BBC reporter.
Clayton also brought up so-called “COVID misinformation,” and asked why Musk cut back the censorship of opinions shared on Twitter pertaining to the coronavirus. In response, Musk remarked that “COVID is no longer an issue.”
The billionaire then asked Clayton whether the BBC takes responsibility for spreading its own form of “misinformation” about COVID, ranging from the effectiveness of masking to side effects from the experimental jabs.
Clayton dodged the question, stating he wasn’t a representative for the BBC’s editorial department and remarking that the interview wasn’t supposed to be about the BBC.
“Oh, you thought it wasn’t?” Musk shot back.