Elon Musk has focused outgoing White Home chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci and Twitter’s former head of security Yael Roth in a brand new string of tweets that seem to align him additional with America’s proper wing.
“My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” the billionaire tweeted within the early hours of Sunday, alluding to the follow of saying one’s pronouns to tell others of their most well-liked gender. The tweet each mocked the left-wing embracement of gender fluidity and highlighted a marketing campaign to cost Fauci over his actions in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The joke got here 45 minutes after Musk posted one other meme depicting a scene from the Lord of the Rings, the place Fauci’s face is positioned on high of Grima Wormtongue — a corrupted character from the trilogy whose recommendation pushes King Theoden right into a destitute state. Biden’s face is positioned on high of the King’s, with Fauci whispering “Only one extra lockdown, my king…” in an obvious criticism of certainly one of Fauci’s COVID mitigation measures, which has not been in place for over a 12 months.
Someday earlier than attacking Fauci, Musk focused Yael Roth — till just lately the pinnacle of security at Twitter and an ally of Musk — for advocating little one sexualization. Musk posted a tweet of an excerpt from Roth’s 300-page doctoral dissertation, titled Homosexual Knowledge, which argues that Grindr shouldn’t attempt to cease individuals beneath 18 from utilizing the homosexual hook-up/courting app (as they discover methods to make use of the app anyway), however as a substitute attempt to “concentrate on crafting security methods” to assist safely join queer younger adults.
Musk attacked Roth – who’s homosexual himself – by accusing him of selling grownup content material to children, tweeting out, “seems like Yoel is arguing in favor of youngsters with the ability to entry grownup web providers in his PhD thesis.”
Attracting on-line trolls
Musk’s assaults on Roth and Fauci parallel more and more widespread statements made by on-line trolls, conspiracy theorists, and right-wing extremists.
The 81-year-old Fauci, who’s stepping down this month because the White Home’s chief medical adviser after 50 years of service, has been probably the most outstanding targets for on-line assaults, sharing on the BBC’s Americast podcast, that he and his household and youngsters have all been focused by what he calls “lowlife” trolls.
A part of the harassment directed at Fauci comes out of the conspiracy theories that accuse him of plotting to manage or hurt individuals with COVID-19 and its vaccines. Fauci has constantly spoken out towards these COVID conspiracy theories, calling them “preposterous” and “assaults on science.” A lot of this abuse has additionally been focused at Invoice Gates, whose charitable basis has funded initiatives to develop and roll out COVID-19 vaccines.
In the meantime, Roth has additionally been a goal of right-wing assaults, together with Twitter’s ex-legal head Vijaya Gadde, over the social media community’s determination to ban former President Donald Trump from the platform after the violent Jan. 6 rebellion on the U.S. Capitol.
Roth’s sexual orientation can also give extra ammunition to far-right voices which were more and more accusing LGBTQ+ individuals with the baseless trope that they’re sexual predators and pedophiles who groom youngsters to abuse them. The Anti-Defamation League’s Heart for Extremism writes that this rising rhetoric has led to “a spike in harassment, threats, and violence concentrating on the LGBTQ+ neighborhood.”
“Eradicating little one exploitation is precedence #1”
After his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Musk mentioned that eradicating little one exploitation content material from the social media was his high precedence, however to date his actions haven’t aligned along with his phrases.
Bloomberg reported that the once-20-person workforce answerable for stopping little one sexual exploitation at Twitter had been gutted in Musk’s chaotic workforce cullings. And whereas some pedophilia-related hashtags had been faraway from the platform since Musk’s takeover, these adjustments had been already within the works earlier than the acquisition took impact, Bloomberg reported.
When Musk tried to take credit score for these actions, tweeting that Twitter had “refused to take motion on little one exploitation for years,” former chief government officer Jack Dorsey, who’s pleasant with Musk, tweeted “that is false.”
That is additionally not the primary time Musk has accused somebody on-line of getting pedophilic tendancies. After 12 members of a youth soccer workforce acquired caught in a collapse Thailand, Musk accused a British caver who was concerned within the rescue of being a “pedo man” and certainly one of Musk’s aides paid $500,000 to rent a personal investigator in a failed effort to again up his accusations.
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