Elton John quits Twitter

Some names cannot be quickly disregarded, especially when they have carved a niche for themselves in the sands of creativity and therapy for the soul and are highly priced for intellectual property. Lovers of good music from way back can identify with some genre of music, especially when the title comes as “Sacrifice” from Living with the past album in 1989. 

As a music crooner, composer, and writer, Sir Elton Hercules John is almost everyone’s favorite, if not all, for many reasons. And while I can talk about or write about several reasons why he counts for what he counts for, today’s post simply identifies why Elton John suddenly quit Elon Musk’s new social media platform, Twitter, and all that concerns it. 

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Renowned music sensation, Sir Elton John, has mentioned his new decision to leave the social media account due to the new actions taken by the CEO, Elon Musk. In his words, “All my life I’ve tried to use music to bring people together." Yet it saddens me to see how misinformation is now being used to divide our world."  "I've decided to no longer use Twitter given their recent policy change, which will allow misinformation to flourish unchecked.” 

Following the recent actions that led to the reactivation of Twitter accounts that were once suspended under the guise of “general amnesty" and that included the likes of Kanye West, the former Ku Klux Klan “grand wizard," Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former adviser, the far-right UK commentator Katie Hopkins, and David Duke, Sir Elton believes this act makes the platform go against everything it believed in. 

He believes that this would be an avenue where misinformation would thrive. Barely two weeks after rapper and business mogul Kanye West’s account was reactivated, it was suspended again after what appeared to be a foul message was tweeted with an image of a swastika blended with the Jewish symbol of a Star of David. Kanye West’s account was immediately suspended again following this post. 

It is quite worthy of note that social media and digital platforms have a control body that guides and controls what could almost appear as a platform to air one’s view. 

According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), Musk's recent tweet suggesting that hate speech impressions were down by a third was misleading because it focused on how frequently tweets were seen rather than how many tweets containing hate speech were posted to the social media network. 

The EU's commissioner for digital policy, Thierry Breton, also reached out to the new Twitter CEO, Elon Musk, informing him of the need to protect users to ensure Twitter would not violate rules that threatened tech giants with large penalties or possibly a ban in the European Union. 

He was advised that he needed to drastically enhance his efforts to comply with the new requirements, known as the Digital Services Act, which are set to go into force next year. 

After these recent actions, including purchases, directives, and new laws passed day in and day out, celebrities like Gigi Hadid, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jim Carrey have left Twitter since Musk’s takeover. 

Sir Elton John’s decision to quit using their social media account, Twitter, has been in the tabloids for many reasons. While the 75-year-old musician holds dearly his view on the shortcoming of the bird app, misinformation and the loss of what the digital social platform uphold might have been considered lost, in his view.