Joe Biden, the President of the United States, made his first
comments on Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, acquiring Twitter, arguably the
world’s most influential social media platform. Speaking at a fundraiser in
Chicago, Biden on Friday said Twitter was responsible for spewing lies. The
president also warned donors about the impact of the November 8 midterm
elections on the future of American polity.

“Now what are we all worried about? Elon Musk goes out and buys
an outfit that sends and spews lies all across the world,” Biden said
addressing the media ecosystem’s near-obsession with everything going on in
Musk’s Twitter. “There’s no editors anymore. There’s no editors. How do we
expect kids to be able to understand what’s at stake,” the President added.

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The Biden White House had been curiously silent about the impact
of Musk buying Twitter until now. Elon Musk, who identifies as a free speech
absolutist, has argued for lesser control on speech on the platform. Since
acquiring the social media giant, Musk has fired heads of the organisation, including
CEO Parag Agrawal and installed loyalists at the helm of affairs.

Twitter is also laying off a major chunk of its total global
workforce in an effort to cut costs. Nearly 3,700 jobs at the
platform are gone.

Content moderation teams at Twitter are reportedly bareboned.

This has made companies wary of advertising on the platform as
advocacy groups have pointed to the risk associated with a lack of content
moderation on Twitter which might give hate speech makers a free reign on the
platform.

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Musk, in a bid to assuage concerns, met with some of these
advocacy groups and said that Twitter will not turn into a hellscape
free-for-all. The Tesla CEO acknowledged on Friday that pressure from civil
rights groups have led to a massive drop in Twitter’s revenue.