“It’s a big relief that Elon Musk is standing up for free speech and removing censorship,” Anil Murty, a cofounder of SIFF, told BuzzFeed News. (He declined to provide evidence that the group’s tweets were shadowbanned before Musk bought Twitter.)
Musk, who has fired over 70% of the company’s employees (including content moderators) since he took over, became a right-wing darling for reinstating more than 15,000 accounts, including those of Donald Trump and far-right voices like Steve Bannon and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. But he’s also banned people critical of him, including journalists, some of whom still remain locked out.
Murty said that he is “grateful” for Musk’s “small contribution” to SIFF’s cause. Thanks to Musk’s overhaul of Twitter’s verification policy, Murty was finally able to pay to get the SIFF account verified, he said. “Earlier, verification was discriminatory,” Murty said. “Now it’s more fair.”