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The Street
The Street
Ian Krietzberg

A Famous Ice Cream Brand Is Latest to Ditch Elon Musk's Twitter

Elon Musk in October shelled out $44 billion to acquire Twitter in the name of protecting free speech. 

On multiple occasions, Musk has called himself a free-speech absolutist and said the purchase, though expensive, was necessary. 

Many people object, however, to his removal of the platform's guardrails against hate speech and misinformation. 

DON'T MISS: Elon Musk Explains Why He Doesn't Regret High-Priced Twitter Purchase

Ben & Jerry's, the famous ice cream maker, is the latest business to begin to distance itself from the platform. The company said on May 31 that it was ending all paid advertising on Twitter. 

"We’ve watched with great concern the developments at Twitter following Elon Musk’s purchase of the social media platform," the Waterbury, Vt., company said in a statement. "Hate speech is up dramatically while content moderation has become all but non-existent.

"Musk himself has doubled down on dangerous anti-democratic lies and white nationalist hate speech. This is unconscionable in addition to being plain bad business."

Calling the microblogging platform a "threatening and even dangerous space," for many people, Ben & Jerry's said that until Twitter ends "extremist and violent content," it won't spend a dime in advertising. 

Since Musk took over, several studies have pointed to the increasing levels of hate speech on Twitter.  

Twitter's trust and safety head, Ella Irwin, resigned June 1. Though she gave no reason for her resignation, the move followed a disputed content-moderation decision made against a video posted by the conservative platform The Daily Wire about transgender people. The video has since been made public. 

"Musk and Twitter’s toxicity and tacit endorsement of hate and violence goes against everything our company stands for," Ben & Jerry's said. 

TheStreet contacted Twitter for comment and received a poop emoji in response.

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