- By Radha Basnet
- Sat, 18 Nov 2023 12:44 PM (IST)
- Source:REUTERS
The White House on Friday accused Elon Musk of an "abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate" on his social media site X. "It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie ... one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust," White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said, as quoted by news agency Reuters. He made these remarks while referring to the October 7 attack by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Israel.
The public outrage over antisemitic discussion on X, some of which was supported by Musk, reached a breaking point on Friday with large advertisers such as Apple Inc. pulling ads and the White House chastising the billionaire.
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Prominent American businesses like Walt Disney Co (DIS.N), Warner Bros Discovery (WBD.O), and Comcast (CMCSA.O), the parent company of NBCUniversal, halted their advertisements on his social media platform after TESLa CEO supported a "hideous" antisemitic conspiracy theory on X.
Civil rights organisations claim that after Musk acquired the website, formerly known as Twitter, in October 2022 and lowered content filtering, advertisers have left, leading to a dramatic increase in hate speech on X.
"Many of the largest advertisers are the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech," Musk wrote on X on Friday while promoting a premier tier of the platform that removes ads from users' feeds.
"When it comes to this platform - X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination. There's no place for it anywhere in the world - it's ugly and wrong. Full stop," X CEO Linda Yaccarino said on Thursday.
Antisemitism has been on the rise in recent years in the United States and worldwide. According to the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization that fights antisemitism, the incidents of antisemitic in the United States increased by about 400 per cent from the year prior period following the strike that sparked the war between Israel and Hamas last month.
(With Inputs From Reuters)