Rumman Chowdhury, an information scientist, nonprofit founder, and former director of Twitter’s machine ethics staff, had sturdy phrases for Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) throughout a panel at SXSW on Thursday.
“When your funding is frozen and also you don’t know for those who’re gonna be fired, and there’s this, like, completely unhinged individual saying bizarre issues on the web always, you continue to must do your job, proper?” Chowdhury stated. “The lights must be stored on as a result of Elon Musk is just not the one holding the lights on, regardless that he would love you to assume that.”
Musk and DOGE, which Musk is advising, have rushed to chop workers throughout U.S. federal companies, in some instances in ways in which compromise cybersecurity. The initiative has gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, lowered headcount on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and fired probationary staff on the Federal Aviation Administration, amongst others.
Chowdhury fears the mind drain ensuing from the dramatic reductions and chaotic administration model. She says she noticed an identical development at Twitter again in 2022, when Musk acquired the platform for $43 billion. Chowdhury was one among many workers let go at brief discover after Musk’s takeover.
“So some estimates say about 20% of [Twitter] had already left earlier than [Musk] even took over, after which he fired one other 30% on prime of that, proper?” Chowdhury stated. “So we’re speaking a giant chunk of the corporate being simply gone, whether or not of their very own volition or not, however I feel an important factor was that simply the looming shadow of [Musk’s] existence fully killed the tradition of Twitter.”
Chowdhury added, “[I]t’s scary to see that taking place to the U.S. authorities, an establishment that issues considerably in each American’s life and even to folks past American borders. Twitter was an organization, sure — it was an impactful firm, nevertheless it’s not the identical as a authorities. […] [Musk] breeds chaotic environments, and chaos is just not the place good work occurs.”
Chowdhury additionally took situation with Musk’s imaginative and prescient for Twitter — now X — which she stated ties in along with his strategy to politics. She accused Musk of utilizing X as a propaganda instrument for his personal ideology — a “megaphone” to push his perspective to the world.
“Like, I don’t assume there’s any debate or dialogue available right here,” Chowdhury stated. “I don’t assume [former Twitter CEO] Jack Dorsey acted anyplace close to the best way Elon Musk [has] — he was not on Twitter day by day along with his opinions, blocking folks, , amplifying others, calling some folks terrorists — like, Jack didn’t act that approach.”
One report discovered that Musk shared deceptive claims concerning the 2024 U.S. presidential election that had been seen almost 1.2 billion instances on X. In posts this yr, Musk has repeatedly made false assertions about federal spending, Ukrainian aggression, and the position of places of work just like the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Musk has gone as far as to query X’s personal fact-checking system, Community Notes, after it corrected posts on X that claimed Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the nation’s elected president, had low approval rankings amongst its residents. “Unfortunately, Community Notes is more and more being gamed by governments and legacy media,” Musk claimed with out proof in a put up.
