Elton John says goodbye to Twitter over misinformation; Elon Musk responds

During his big farewell tour, Sir Elton John took the time this morning to say goodbye.

“I have decided to stop using Twitter as the recent policy change allows misinformation to flourish unhindered,” John wrote on Twitter.

The platform has recently been at the center of a number of controversies, most notably anti-Semitic posts on the platform by Kanye West and Kyrie Irving, which have been condemned by the ADL, Ari Emanuel, LeBron James and many others.

Then, less than two weeks ago, Twitter announced that it would no longer maintain a policy to combat misinformation about the Covid pandemic.

“Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter will no longer enforce the COVID-19 misinformation policy,” reads a comment on Twitter’s transparency pages.

There were also Musk’s own erroneous and borderline anti-Semitic tweets, which also drew widespread rebuke.

John, who has long been outspoken against hate speech and spent 20 years trying to end the AIDS epidemic through his Elton John AIDS Foundation, added a personal note.

“All my life I have tried to use music to bring people together. Still, it saddens me to see how misinformation is now being used to divide our world,” he wrote.

Twitter owner Elon Musk was among those who responded to the musician.

“I love your music. I hope you come back,” Musk wrote. “Is there any misinformation that worries you?”

Other names in bold and prominent organizations that have stopped posting on the service or left it altogether include Whoopi Goldberg, Jim Carrey, Shonda Rhimes, David Simon, Jamela Jamil, Trent Reznor, Gigi Hadid, Toni Braxton, Téa Leoni , Jack White, Liz Phair, Stephen Fry, Alex Winter, Ken Olin and Playbill Magazine.