John,

Urgent update! Musk has agreed to important platform protections ahead of
the election following direct engagement with Color Of Change and our
partners. This is an incredible testament to the power of Color Of Change
members like you!

Color Of Change President Rashad Robinson, along with other civil rights
and racial justice leaders, met with Musk yesterday to demand immediate
action addressing the rapid increase in hateful content and misinformation
in the days since Musk took over. Because of our track record in holding
powerful executives accountable and the direct action taken by members
like you, Musk agreed to the following demands^1:

* Twitter will not restore the accounts of any banned users ahead of the
midterm elections, and Musk will not act on  any reinstatements until
a transparent, stakeholder-centered process has been established
* Twitter will keep in place its election-integrity content moderation
policies and enforcement. Additionally, it will restore access to all
content moderators who  were locked out shortly after Musk assumed
control. 
* Musk committed to transparency in forming  his new content moderation
council, and invited several civil rights leaders to join. 

While these commitments are important first steps ahead of  the election,
we still have a long way to go to ensure that Musk makes protecting Black
communities from hate and harassment an ongoing priority. We’ve been
fighting to make Twitter safer for Black users for a long time, and while
new leadership means new opportunities, we can’t simply take  Musk at his
word. He routinely spreads dangerous misinformation himself, has a long
record of union-busting activities and runs companies that are constantly
sued for racist and misogynistic practices.^2,3,4 

The first chaotic days of  Musk’s Twitter leadership underscores why no
single person should have total control over an important communication
and social media network. We must meet this volatility with an increased
effort to build the power of our community, hold Musk to his commitments
and to push him to develop long-term solutions towards building a platform
that is free of violent and misinformed content. 

[ [link removed] ]WILL YOU HELP US HOLD ELON MUSK ACCOUNTABLE?

Until justice is real,

– Color of Change's Tech Accountability Team

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 References

 1. Elon Musk, [@elonmusk], “Talked to civil society leaders
[ [link removed] ]@JGreenblattADL, [ [link removed] ]@YaelEisenstat, [ [link removed] ]@rashadrobinson,
[ [link removed] ]@JGo4Justice, [ [link removed] ]@normanlschen, [ [link removed] ]@DerrickNAACP, [ [link removed] ]@TheBushCenter
Ken Hersch & [ [link removed] ]@SindyBenavides about how Twitter will continue to
combat hate & harassment & enforce its election integrity policies”
Twitter, November 2, 2022,
[link removed]
 2. Elizabeth Dwoskin and Faiz Siddiqui, “Elon Musk deleted a tweet about
Paul Pelosi. Here’s why that matters,” Washington Post, October 30,
2022,
[link removed]
 3. Lora Kolodny, “Tesla ordered to have Elon Musk delete anti-union
tweet.” NBC News, March 25, 2021,
[link removed]
 4. Hyunjoo Jin, “Tesla hit by new lawsuit alleging racial abuse against
Black workers,” Reuters, July 1, 2022,
[link removed]



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