Musk’s warning to X users
“We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans,”
(TIMES OF ISRAEL) – Elon Musk said late last month that X users who use the terms “decolonisation,” “from the river to the sea” and other similar euphemisms that “necessarily imply genocide” will be suspended from the social media platform.
“Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension,” Musk wrote on the platform, formerly known as Twitter.
“Anyone calling for a genocide of any people will be suspended,” he replied to a user who asked, “So many influential accounts here support Hamas’ massacre. Will you suspend them?”
The tweets came after Musk faced backlash for endorsing an antisemitic post on X that accused Jewish people of driving hatred against white people.
In follow-up posts, Musk wrote that he doesn’t believe that “all Jewish communities” hate white people but said the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) “unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel. This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticise the minority groups who are their primary threat.”
“I am deeply offended by ADL’s messaging and any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind,” he wrote. “I’m sick of it. Stop now.”
Musk has faced multiple accusations that hate rhetoric and antisemitism have grown significantly on X since he took over the company in 2022, as well as accusations of having using antisemitic tropes himself. Global antisemitism has spiked after war erupted between Israel and Hamas when the terror group carried out a devastating attack that killed some 1200 people in Israel — mostly civilians — and took some 240 hostages.
Musk and the ADL have been at odds for about a year. Soon after Musk’s takeover of the platform in 2022, the ADL encouraged companies to pause their ad spending on the site in protest of Musk removing guardrails against hate speech, though the ADL resumed its own paid ads on the platform.
IBM, EU and Lionsgate said they would pause ads on X last month amid a surge of hate speech. In IBM’s case, the multinational said it stopped advertising on X after a report said its ads were appearing alongside material praising Nazis.
“We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in response to Musk’s tweet.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said on X after Musk’s post to suspend users who call for genocide: “This is an important and welcome move by [Musk]. I appreciate this leadership in fighting hate.”
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