Rumman Chowdhury, an information scientist, nonprofit founder, and former director of Twitter’s machine ethics staff, had sturdy phrases for Elon Musk and the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) throughout an SXSW panel on Thursday.
“When your funding is frozen and also you don’t know if you happen to’re gonna be fired, and there’s this, like, completely unhinged particular person saying bizarre issues on the web consistently, you continue to must do your job, proper?” Chowdhury stated. “The lights must be stored on as a result of Elon Musk just isn’t the one maintaining the lights on, although he would really like you to suppose that.”
Musk and DOGE, which Musk is advising, have rushed to chop workers throughout U.S. federal businesses, in some circumstances in ways in which compromise cybersecurity. The initiative has gutted the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau, diminished headcount on the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration, and fired probationary workers 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 pattern at Twitter again in 2022, when Musk acquired the platform for $43 billion. Chowdhury was considered one of many workers let go at quick 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 believe a very powerful 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 individuals past American borders. Twitter was an organization, sure — it was an impactful firm, however it’s not the identical as a authorities. […] [Musk] breeds chaotic environments, and chaos just isn’t the place good work occurs.”
Chowdhury additionally took problem 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 propoganda software for his personal ideology — a “megaphone” to push his perspective to the world.
“Like, I don’t suppose there’s any debate or dialogue available right here,” Chowdhury stated. “I don’t suppose [former Twitter CEO] Jack Dorsey acted wherever close to the way in which Elon Musk [has] — he was not on Twitter every single day along with his opinions, blocking individuals, , amplifying others, calling some individuals terrorists — like, Jack didn’t act that approach.”
One report discovered that Musk shared deceptive claims in regards to the 2024 U.S. presidential election that had been considered almost 1.2 billion occasions on X. In posts this yr, Musk has repeatedly made false assertions about federal spending, Ukrainian aggression, and the position of workplaces just like the Federal Emergency Administration Company.
Musk has gone as far as to query X’s personal fact-checking system, Group Notes, after it corrected posts on X that claimed Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the nation’s elected president, had low approval rankings amongst its residents. “Sadly, Group Notes is more and more being gamed by governments and legacy media,” Musk claimed with out proof in a publish.
