Musk made the big announcement during a chat with the popular host, the first part of which aired Monday on Tucker Carlson Tonight. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has been candid about his concerns about artificial intelligence (AI), the Twitter acquisition and his future plans for the social media platform he purchased last fall.
Musk accused his predecessors at the social network’s management of allowing the United States and other intelligence agencies to read users’ direct messages on the platform, calling this fact the most “absurd” discoveries. he has made since buying the company for $44 billion. “The extent to which government agencies actually had complete access to everything that was happening on Twitter amazed me,” Musk told Carlson. “I did not know.” “Does this include people’s private messages?” Musk asked the Fox News host. “Yes,” Musk replied, “because the messages weren’t encrypted.”
Musk said he was headed towards a feature that will give users the ability to encrypt direct messages in hopes of limiting interference from authorities and intelligence agencies. According to him, he hopes to introduce a new addition later this month. If the encryption option is chosen, “no one on Twitter will see what you’re talking about,” Musk explained. “You can put a gun to my head and I can’t tell you about it,” he told Carlson. “That’s how it should be.”
Since purchasing the platform, Musk has made it a personal goal to expose the coordination between the tech giant and the federal government to moderate content, including with his posting of Twitter Files. He gave independent journalists access to Twitter’s archives for a time, including a number of reports on what led to former President Trump’s impeachment and the government’s role in censoring Twitter. on the laptop of Hunter Biden, the son of the current White House chief. .
The tech mogul has become one of the biggest journalists of the past year since acquiring the platform, which has offended Democrats and liberal media over his expressed desire to restore free speech on the platform. He notably restored the account of Trump and a number of his supporters. Musk said he was unaware that Twitter had become a magnet for intelligence agencies, but recalled feeling “uncomfortable” on the platform in the months leading up to the announcement. ‘acquisition.
Carlson told viewers that the new Direct Message Encryption feature would effectively give “on the cuff” to US intelligence agencies and their counterparts overseas, who have long relied on the platform to gather information. Musk said he had already received “indirect complaints” from various intelligence agencies about the crackdown, joking that they were unhappy with the decision. “If I received something unconstitutional from the US government, I would reply that I would send them a copy of the First Amendment and simply ask, ‘How are we wrong?'” Musk concluded.
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