Lebron James took to Twitter to demand action from Elon Musk on the recent spike in use of the n-word on the platform.
The NBA star remarks follow a Washington Post report that found that Twitter trolls emboldened by Mr Musk’s successful $44bn Twitter acquisition have prompted a 500 per cent surge in the use of the racial slur.
“I don”t know Elon Musk and, tbh, I could care less who owns [T]witter. But I will say that if this is true, I hope he and his people take this very seriously because this is scary AF. So many damn unfit people saying hate speech is free speech,” Mr James tweeted on Saturday.
The report, by Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), found that the spike had taken place in the 12 hours after Mr Musk who has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” closed the Twitter deal.
The Tesla founder said on Friday that Twitter would be forming a “content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints.” He warned that no major content decisions or account reinstatements will take place before the board is chosen.
The report by NCRI found that many of the tweets using racial slurs and anti-Semitic messages were planned on the far-right website 4chan and the forum TheDonald.
One of the tweets reportedly read, “I can freely express how much I hate n—s … now, thank you [E]lon,” according to the Post.
A lead intelligence analyst at NCRI told the Post that trolls behind the verbal attacks intended “to make as big a mess as possible for Twitter’s new management.”
Following the acquisition, figures linked to Russia and Chinese-sponsored media also called for propaganda labels to be removed from their content. Sexist, anti-trans and homophobic tweets were also on the rise in the aftermath of Mr Musk’s Twitter takeover.
The SpaceX boss has said he believes strongly in absolute free speech, and that it is “important to the future of civilisation” to have a space where “a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner.”
“There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left[-]wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society,” he tweeted on Thursday.
Mr Musk had initially said that he would reinstate banned Twitter accounts including that of Donald Trump, but seemingly backtracked from his previous stance after sharing that a council will be in charge of deeming which accounts bans can be reversed.
