Statement on Elon Musk’s Embrace of Ron DeSantis: “Companies that give ad money to Twitter might as well be cutting a check to the DeSantis campaign”

For Immediate Release
May 24, 2023
Contact: press@accountabletech.org

Accountable Tech’s Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gill released the following statement ahead of Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign launch on Twitter Spaces with Elon Musk:

“Elon Musk has already turned Twitter into a hellscape of hate and conspiracy. But his full-throated embrace of Ron DeSantis – only weeks after Tucker Carlson announced he would revive his Fox News show on Twitter – is a new low for what was once one of the world’s most important communication platforms.

“Despite Musk’s insistence that Twitter will be a neutral home for open discourse and ‘free speech,’ he has used it to boost his own opinions, pander to Putin, and help foreign governments censor critics. Now, Musk’s Twitter is officially a megaphone for one party’s extremism.

“Every single company still advertising on Twitter better be comfortable with banning books, whitewashing history, and threatening LGBTQ+ families, because as of today, companies giving ad money to Twitter might as well be cutting a check to the DeSantis campaign.”

###

Statements

Oct 29, 2024

One Week from Election Day, Accountable Tech Condemns Meta for Facilitating Anti-Government Militia Organizing on Facebook

Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gill released the following statement after new reporting found that Facebook is failing to shut down anti-government militia activity on its platform – and is even auto-generating group pages – in the lead-up to Election Day:

Statements

Oct 03, 2024

Accountable Tech on Injunction Against California Anti-Deepfakes Law

Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gill issued the following statement on U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez’s ruling to pause enforcement of AB 2389, a California law recently signed by Governor Gavin Newsom to prevent the distribution of deepfakes made about political candidates within a certain proximity to an election: