“We will have to be very careful on this platform in the coming days … On what you retweet, to which account you subscribe and in relation to your own perception of what is happening”, for example warned Kate Starbird , a University of Washington disinformation researcher.

The professor believes that there is an increased risk of malicious people impersonating others, carrying out "coordinated disinformation campaigns" or even spreading hoaxes well enough designed to be shared by other inattentive users.

In a letter to advertisers last Thursday, the day of the acquisition, Elon Musk promised advertisers that Twitter would not become a "hell" platform where anything goes.

But "Twitter was already hellish before Musk took control, and his actions (...) will only make things worse," reacted Jessica Gonzalez, co-director of the NGO Free Press.

She fears that Twitter's ability to moderate content will be diminished in the midst of an election, "when we know very well that social networks are drowned in misinformation and intimidation against minority voters".

"Lie Machine"

On Friday, a week after the $44 billion acquisition, Twitter laid off about 50% of its nearly 7,500 employees.

According to internal sources, managers, marketing and design were among the categories of personnel most affected by the cuts.

Yoel Roth, the security manager on the site, wanted to be reassuring by tweeting that "most of the moderation capacities have remained in place".

Content moderation teams have suffered only 15% departures, he said, and "frontline staff are the least affected".

He also assured that the daily volume of moderating actions had remained "stable" this week.

"Our efforts to support election integrity -- including combating disinformation aimed at discouraging voting and foreign influence operations -- remain a top priority," he said.

Elon Musk advocates an absolute vision of freedom of expression.

He may repeat that content moderation had not changed at Twitter and promise to form a council dedicated to this task, he struggles to convince his detractors.

Especially when he relays disinformation, like when he retweeted a conspiracy theory on Sunday about the assault on the husband of Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in Congress.

He himself deleted his message afterwards.

"Elon Musk bought a machine that spreads lies around the world," Joe Biden said on Friday during a campaign meeting.

The American president warned this week the candidates ready to refuse the results of the midterm elections, in the Senate and in Congress.

His predecessor, Donald Trump, has still not acknowledged his 2020 defeat and maintains that the ballot was "stolen" from him.

This is one of the arguments that had galvanized his fans, to the point of invading the Capitol in January 2021.

"Anything"

A Montclair State University study concluded that Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter had "created the perception for extremist users that restrictions would be relaxed".

A coalition of around 60 associations, including Free Press, on Friday called on advertisers to boycott the platform until it pledges to be "a safe place".

Members of this coalition met with the libertarian entrepreneur this week, after several studies have noted a significant increase in hate speech and racist slurs in recent days.

"Elon Musk has taken steps that make us fear the worst is yet to come," the coalition said.

The multi-billionaire replied, without supporting data, that "hate speech actually went down this week."

On Friday, he briefly explained that the layoffs were necessary because "the company is losing more than $4 million a day."

He previously blamed the drop in revenue on "a group of activists who lobbied advertisers even though nothing changed with content moderation and we did everything to appease the activists".

"It's really nonsense! They are trying to destroy freedom of expression in America", he got carried away.

© 2022 AFP