Elon Musk blacklisted a developer, a former Twitter employee, for exposing technical flaws and subsequently filed a lawsuit against him. This programming expert conducted research that demonstrated how misinformation and hate speech had proliferated on X.
Elon Musk blacklisted the researcher after altering the social network’s terms of use a few months ago to prevent such investigations.
Elon Musk’s social network, X, suspended the account of a software developer, claiming that the investigation he had conducted on the platform violated the company’s terms of service.
It’s worth noting that this contradicts the magnate’s rhetoric of having a social network where freedom is of paramount importance, according to him. Nevertheless, he had previously blocked journalists covering information about his management upon landing on X, so freedom appears to be according to his interests.
The issue arose after Elon Musk’s “chaotic acquisition” (literal words from the TechCrunch news outlet) of the platform. Travis Brown conducted an investigation into X, formerly known as Twitter, which provided very negative feedback about this social network.
This developer was familiar with Twitter. Brown had worked on open-source projects at Twitter for a significant period before Musk’s tenure. Following the acquisition, Musk began investigating hate speech and account suspensions on the platform. To analyze this, he collected data using a software tool he had created in collaboration with the Open Knowledge Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on data transparency.