Elon Musk Takes a Page Out of Mark Zuckerberg’s Social Media Playbook

Elon Musk has positioned himself as an unconventional businessman. When he agreed to purchase Twitter this 12 months, he declared he would make the social media service a spot for unfettered free speech, reversing a lot of its guidelines and permitting banned customers like former President Donald J. Trump to return.

However since closing his $44 billion buyout of Twitter final week, Mr. Musk has adopted a surprisingly typical social media playbook.

The world’s richest man met with greater than six civil rights teams — together with the N.A.A.C.P. and the Anti-Defamation League — on Tuesday to guarantee them that he is not going to make adjustments to Twitter’s content material guidelines earlier than the outcomes of subsequent week’s midterm elections are licensed. He additionally met with promoting executives to debate their issues about their manufacturers showing alongside poisonous on-line content material. Final week, Mr. Musk mentioned he would type a council to advise Twitter on what sorts of content material to take away from the platform and wouldn’t instantly reinstate banned accounts.

If these selections and outreach appear acquainted, that’s as a result of they’re. Different leaders of social media firms have taken related steps. After Fb was criticized for being misused within the 2016 presidential election, Mark Zuckerberg, the social community’s chief government, additionally met with civil rights teams to calm them and labored to mollify irate advertisers. He later mentioned he would set up an impartial board to advise his firm on content material selections.

Mr. Musk is in his early days of proudly owning Twitter and is anticipated to make massive adjustments to the service and enterprise, together with shedding a number of the firm’s 7,500 staff. However for now, he’s partaking with most of the identical constituents that Mr. Zuckerberg has needed to over a few years, social media consultants and heads of civil society teams mentioned.

Mr. Musk “has found what Mark Zuckerberg found a number of years in the past: Being the face of controversial massive calls isn’t enjoyable,” mentioned Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Legislation Faculty. Social media firms “all face the identical pressures of customers, advertisers and governments, and there’s all the time this convergence round this widespread set of norms and processes that you just’re pressured towards.”

Mr. Musk didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark, and a Twitter spokeswoman declined to remark. Meta, which owns Fb and Instagram, declined to remark.

At Tuesday’s assembly with civil rights teams, which Mr. Musk held over a videoconferencing service, the discussions centered on subsequent week’s midterm elections and his method to content material moderation, mentioned Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P.; Rashad Robinson, the president of Shade of Change; and Yael Eisenstat, who heads the Heart for Expertise & Society on the Anti-Defamation League. All three attended the decision.

Through the 45-minute dialogue, the group requested Mr. Musk for a multimonth moratorium on adjustments to Twitter’s insurance policies and enforcement processes associated to elections, hate speech and harassment — at the very least till the midterm election outcomes had been last and “he has his home so as,” Ms. Eisenstat mentioned.

In addition they requested that Mr. Musk block the return of anybody who had been faraway from Twitter for violating guidelines or inciting violence till he created a clear course of for doing so, she mentioned.

Mr. Musk “seemed to be actively engaged and actively listening all through the whole assembly,” Ms. Eisenstat mentioned. She added that Mr. Musk had advised the group that he didn’t need Twitter to be a “hate-amplifier” and invited the members on the decision to affix his proposed content material moderation council.

“He made it appear as if he desires to proceed this dialogue,” she mentioned.

Mr. Musk additionally advised the group that he wouldn’t make adjustments to Twitter’s insurance policies or reinstate banned accounts earlier than the ultimate outcomes of the vote, the attendees mentioned.

The billionaire was receptive to the issues raised by the civil rights organizations, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Robinson mentioned. However they added that their teams had been ready to see what actions Mr. Musk may take.

“We had been pleasantly stunned together with his verbal receptiveness with the issues that we raised, and now we wish to see the end result,” Mr. Johnson mentioned.

Mr. Musk, who has been working with a gaggle of advisers as he takes over Twitter, has additionally had discussions with advertisers in current days. Twitter makes about 90 % of its income from digital promoting. Whereas Mr. Musk has mentioned he desires to scale back how a lot the corporate depends on promoting, he’s below stress to enhance Twitter’s funds shortly due to debt repayments he should make for the buyout.

“We’re having a really productive day assembly with the advertising and marketing and promoting group right here in New York,” Jason Calacanis, an investor who’s advising Mr. Musk on Twitter, mentioned in a tweet on Monday.

Some advertisers have been cautious of Mr. Musk’s Twitter if it takes an anything-goes method to speech. IPG, one of many world’s largest promoting firms, really useful this week that purchasers quickly pause their spending on Twitter as Mr. Musk takes over. Normal Motors mentioned final week that it was quickly suspending promoting on Twitter.

Different social media companies have beforehand grappled with advertiser backlash over dangerous content material on their platforms. Final 12 months, greater than 1,000 advertisers boycotted Fb after civil rights teams organized a #StopHateForProfit marketing campaign to protest the platform’s dealing with of hate speech and misinformation.

Even Mr. Musk’s transfer to create a council to advise on content material moderation selections echoed that of different social media firms. In 2020, Fb established an oversight board made up of former political leaders and human rights activists to deliberate the corporate’s content material selections. On the time, Mr. Zuckerberg mentioned that he didn’t wish to have last say over what speech could be allowed on the social community and that the corporate’s moderation selections may very well be appealed to the oversight board.

The oversight board has since issued rulings on selections equivalent to Fb’s barring of Mr. Trump’s account after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol.

Mr. Musk is poised to take an analogous method. “Twitter’s content material moderation council will embrace representatives with broadly divergent views, which will definitely embrace the civil rights group and teams who face hate-fueled violence,” he mentioned in a tweet on Tuesday night.

Nonetheless, Mr. Musk left open the opportunity of ultimately reinstating banned accounts. “Twitter is not going to permit anybody who was de-platformed for violating Twitter guidelines again on platform till we’ve got a transparent course of for doing so, which is able to take at the very least a couple of extra weeks,” he mentioned.

He additionally expressed help for some present Twitter options, together with Birdwatch, a community-based initiative that lets folks establish data in tweets they consider is deceptive and write notes with extra context. The initiative continues to be present process testing however is being rolled out to some high-profile tweets.

“Our objective is to make Twitter essentially the most correct supply of knowledge on Earth, with out regard to political affiliation,” Mr. Musk tweeted on Wednesday.

Sheera Frenkel contributed reporting.