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Elon Musk says Twitter takeover has been ‘painful’ but the company is now ‘roughly breakeven’

Since taking over the platform in late October, Twitter has suffered a mass exodus of top brands as Musk relaxed some content moderation policies, restored incendiary accounts and made a number of erratic remarks concerning politics and world affairs. Musk, who has previously tweeted about his hatred for advertising, made a quick bet on bolstering a paid subscription offering instead, but it has reportedly struggled to gain traction.

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Civil rights leaders condemn Musk decision to lift Trump Twitter ban

Unless and until Musk can be trusted to enforce Twitter’s prior community standards, the platform is not safe for users or advertisers,” the #StopToxicTwitter coalition led by Accountable Tech, Free Press and Media Matters for America said in a statement. “For those still advertising on Twitter right now: know that you are contributing directly to an erratic billionaire’s decimation of Twitter and its rapid devolution into utter chaos.

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Civil rights leaders call for all advertisers to stop spending on Twitter

The coalition, dubbed #StopToxicTwitter, consists of organizations including Media Matters, Free Press, Accountable Tech and Color of Change. Earlier this week, the coalition sent a letter to companies including Amazon, Anheuser-Busch, Apple, Capital One, Coca-Cola, Disney and Procter & Gamble to voice their concerns to Musk about what the group sees as increased hate and offensive speech on the platform.

The coalition is now urging companies to pause spending on Twitter, fearing that widespread layoffs at the company could impede the social media platform’s ability to moderate content on the site.

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Twitter owner Elon Musk met with civil rights leaders Tuesday — here’s what happened

After the call with civil rights groups, Musk tweeted that users who’ve been banned from Twitter for violating its rules — a group that includes former President Donald Trump — will not have the chance to return to the platform for at least another few weeks. Prior reports suggested Musk was planning to allow people who’d been kicked off Twitter for disciplinary reasons to come back.

Musk told the group that he plans to retain and enforce Twitter’s election integrity measures, and staff will have access to the necessary tools by the end of this week, Free Press CEO Jessica Gonzalez, who was on the call, said in an interview.

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