An open letter was sent to the advertisers on Twitter demanding they take action after bigotry, racism, and disinformation exploded on the platform. The surge in hate came within hours of Elon Musk successfully purchasing Twitter.

MORE: Fact Check: Is Elon Musk Really ‘African American’?

In the letter, activists called out the parallels between Musk’s purchase of twitter and the racist trolls who used it as an opportunity to spread their hate. 

“Not only are extremists celebrating Musk’s takeover of Twitter, they are seeing it as a new opportunity to post the most abusive, harassing, and racist language and imagery,” the letter read.

“This includes clear threats of violence against people with whom they disagree. Without deliberate efforts by Twitter to address this type of abuse and hate, your brands will be actively supporting accelerating extremism.”

According to the Washington Post, in the 12 hours after Musk acquired Twitter, the use of the N-word surged 500%.

“Elon now controls Twitter. Unleash the racial slurs. K—S AND N—–S,” said one user who also used slurs for Jewish and Black people. “I can freely express how much I hate n—–s … now, thank you elon,” another said.

The organizations behind the open letter also called on advertisers to stop Musk from making major changes to the brand safety and community standards, which have for years banned many forms of hate speech. 

“We, the undersigned organizations, call on you to notify Musk and publicly commit that you will cease all advertising on Twitter globally if he follows through on his plans to undermine brand safety and community standards including gutting content moderation,” read the letter. “This means that Musk must not roll back the basic moderation practices Twitter already has on the books now and must commit to actually enforcing those rules.”

Lebron James also took to social to express his concerns about the uptick in racism on Twitter.

“I hope [Musk] and his people take this very seriously because this is scary AF,” James tweeted. “So many damn unfit people saying hate speech is free speech.”

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

 

Below is the list of advertisers mentioned in the letter:

Amazon
Anheuser-Busch
Apple Inc.
Capital One Financial Corporation
CBS
CenturyLink
Coca-Cola Company
Comcast Corporation
Best Buy Co. Inc
Disney
Google
Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO)
IBM, Merck & Co.
Meta Platforms, Inc.
Mondelez International
PepsiCo, Inc.
Procter & Gamble
Unilever and Verizon

SEE ALSO:

It Only Took A Few Hours For The Elon Musk Purchase To Make Twitter Racist Again

Elon Musk Completes Twitter Purchase: 5 Reasons Why Black People Should Be Wary

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