It has been revealed that Twitter has blocked its own developers from making changes to the app in order to stop it being sabotaged in protest at the takeover of the company by the world's richest man Elon Musk.
Musk has agreed to buy the company for $44billion and will take it private. Many fear that having the world's richest person who has seriously questionable standpoints on certain issues is a great danger to democracy and freedom of speech or worry that he will allow hate speech to proliferate on the platform.
It is reported that Twitter employees bombarded the internal messaging system with criticism following the takeover announcement, with many saying they refused to work with an individual such as Musk.
Among those raising concerns was executive director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Anthony Romero, who said:
"There is a lot of danger having so much power in the hands of any one individual."
And software engineer Addison Howenstine, who said:
"POV: You asked me why El*n M*sk is buying 9.2% of Tw*tter and getting a board seat is bad and I'm explaining why this was clearly not his end goal and things will certainly get worse and potentially be dangerous for democracy and global affairs."
Several celebrities have also said they were against the move or that they will leave the platform, including British actress Jameela Jamil, 37, who stated:
"Ah he got twitter. I would like this to be my what lies here as my last tweet. Just really *any* excuse to show pics of Barold. I fear this free speech bid is going to help this hell platform reach its final form of totally lawless hate, bigotry, and misogyny. Best of luck."
And Rob Reiner, who made his worries clear that Donald Trump may be invited back onto the platform despite being banned for safety reasons in 2021. He said:
"Now that Elon Musk is buying Twitter, the question for all of us is: Will he allow a Criminal who used this platform to lie and spread disinformation to try to overthrow the US Government to return and continue his Criminal activity? And if he does, how do we combat it?"
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey was less critical and praised the move, saying:
"I love Twitter. Twitter is the closest thing we have to a global consciousness. The idea and service is all that matters to me and I will do whatever it takes to protect both. In principle, I don't think anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company. Solving for the problem of it being a company however, Elon is the only solution I trust."
[Based on reporting by: The Daily Mail]
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