LeBron James and other Black celebrities now characterize Twitter as a “scary” place now that billionaire baron Elon Musk has purchased the social media platform for $44 billion.
King James highlighted a report on the sudden explosion of the use of the N-word on Twitter right after Musk’s takeover of the ultra-popular app.
The Network Contagion Research Institute tweeted on Friday, Oct. 28, 2022, “over the last 12 hours, the use of the N-word has increased nearly 500 percent from the previous average.”
The Washington Post, which published the NCRI report, theorizes that many White folks are posting racial slurs such as Nazi memes and the N-word to test out the limit of the company’s new moderation policies.
James, the Los Angeles Lakers superstar, hopes that Musk will address this matter expeditiously.
I dont know Elon Musk and, tbh, I could care less who owns twitter. But I will say that if this is true, I hope he and his people take this very seriously because this is scary AF. So many damn unfit people saying hate speech is free speech. https://t.co/Sy0jvXIBnC
— LeBron James (@KingJames) October 29, 2022
Ironically, just before he bought Twitter, Musk wrote a public letter to advertisers, according to the newspaper, assuring them that he didn’t want the platform to “become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”
But there are celebs who don’t trust Musk and said they are not sticking around to find out.
Not hanging around for whatever Elon has planned. Bye.
— shonda rhimes (@shondarhimes) October 29, 2022
The Post did report that some hateful messages were taken down on Friday, but it has not assuaged the fears exhibited by the likes of James and Rhimes.
