Tech
Elon Musk Makes Fun Of ‘#StayWoke’ T-Shirts At Twitter HQ
(CTN NEWS) – Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, has decided to reorient his objectives to organize protests against police brutality and racial inequality.
After discovering several “#StayWoke” t-shirts in a cupboard on Tuesday night (Nov. 22), Elon Musk posted a video from Twitter’s offices.
He tweeted, “Found in closet at Twitter HQ fr,” along with an image of a crying face and footage of someone, probably Elon Musk as he narrates the clip, digging through shelves full of different Twitter t-shirts.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1595250835096621057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1595250835096621057%7Ctwgr%5E4fcde1161d3665f97efecdaccd82684608db79f6%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmashable.com%2Farticle%2Felon-musk-stay-woke-twitter-shirts-black-lives-matter
Venture capitalist David Sacks tweeted, “The conquest of Wokerosi is complete,” co-authoring the book The Diversity Myth, which criticized diversity initiatives on college campuses and questioned the existence of date rape.
Sacks have joined Elon Musk’s team to assist in running Twitter. “Melt them down and turn them into an Iron Throne.”
The conquest of Wokerosi is complete. Melt them down and turn them into an Iron Throne. https://t.co/o3Y5wbRCsI
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) November 23, 2022
Elon Musk seems to have shared the video to dispel accusations that he has only catered to right-wing users’ requests on the site.
Twitter has unbanned several previously banned accounts during the past week, almost all of which belonged to conservative media personalities and leaders.
Twitter’s new owner argues that the firm was governed by left-leaning executives who were hostile to conservatives on the network.
Additionally, “woke” has come to represent anything leftist or progressive thanks to conservative rebranding.
Many Twitter users, including Ryan Mac from The New York Times, clarified that these shirts weren’t making any “leftist” remark.
Awareness of racial and social justice issues is all that the slang term “woke” originally signified in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE).
https://twitter.com/RMac18/status/1595271296459292672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1595271296459292672%7Ctwgr%5E4fcde1161d3665f97efecdaccd82684608db79f6%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmashable.com%2Farticle%2Felon-musk-stay-woke-twitter-shirts-black-lives-matter
In the wake of the widespread Black Lives Matter demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality at the time,
Twitter’s Black employee group, known as “Blackbirds,” developed the #StayWoke shirts in the middle of the 2010s.
After Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, even sported a #StayWoke shirt, Mac said. Dorsey had originally texted Elon Musk about buying the social media platform.
Our #StayWoke shirts are now available for purchase. Buy one now through April 23rd! https://t.co/YuIdmA6nPk pic.twitter.com/v8uZGxfvM0
— Twitter Blackbirds (@Blackbirds) April 12, 2016
Elon Musk, however, decided to escalate his stance by tweeting his disapproval of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations.
“#StayWoke shirts stem from the Ferguson protests,” Elon Musk tweeted. “Obama’s own DOJ proved this and exonerated the cop. ‘Hands up don’t shoot’ was made up. The whole thing was fiction.”
He deleted this, but, gee, I wonder why advertisers are bailing. Must be the "activists" and not, say, the behavior of the impulsive CEO. pic.twitter.com/gqvyHMaG53
— Mike Masnick (@mmasnick) November 23, 2022
Elon Musk later removed the tweet and substituted a link to the DOJ report on the Ferguson incident.
Then, in response to right-wing opinion leaders decrying Black Lives Matter demonstrations as “scams” and “hoaxes,” he responded positively.
In Twitter comments, Elon Musk also has double-downed, echoing his removed message’s sentiment.
Meanwhile, another user said, “You know being woke is good, right?” It means you care about others rather than being selfish. All of us should strive to be woke.”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1595250835096621057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1595255971408130049%7Ctwgr%5E58a202d95889c5ca8e4a7bcf40dd9dc2967fb40f%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ndtv.com%2Fworld-news%2Felon-musk-finds-closet-full-of-staywoke-t-shirts-at-twitter-headquarters-shares-video-3546020
Musk has decided to concentrate on the “hands up, don’t fire” campaign, inspired by first eyewitness accounts that said Brown had given himself up before Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot him.
According to the DOJ, Brown could not have raised his hands at the time of the incident.
However, the DOJ also discovered that 93% of those detained by the Ferguson police department over two years were Black. Furthermore, 88 percent of recorded instances of use of force involved Black people.
The investigation revealed that officers had used racist jokes and racial epithets in official email exchanges. These events occurred. And this is what the hashtag #StayWoke stands for.
The shirts don’t say “hands up don’t shoot,” even by Musk’s logic.
They use the hashtag “#StayWoke” about the need to keep bringing attention to racial injustice and prejudice, which the previous president Obama’s DOJ did discover within the Ferguson police department.
Musk doesn’t appear to be aware of Twitter’s contribution to the Ferguson demonstrations.
On-the-ground activists like DeRay Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie tweeted about the developments that followed the police shooting of Michael Brown.
When Mckesson was detained in Ferguson, a picture of him wearing a shirt bearing the hashtag #StayWoke went viral.
Elon Musk appears to be uninformed of the background of one of the best examples of citizen journalism despite his claims to care deeply about it.
Musk has received criticism for treating Black staff unfairly at his firms. Earlier this year, Black Tesla workers said they experienced racism while working for the corporation.
Black Tesla employees filed a lawsuit over the summer in response to racial discrimination. Elon Musk briefly tried to administer Twitter impartially for a brief time.
He visited with civil rights organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and NAACP for a brief period, assuring them.
That he would take steps like creating a content moderation council that would make important decisions on policy and the lifting of account bans.
But after independently deciding to restore the accounts of users like former President Donald Trump, Musk was questioned about this content filtering strategy. His response: He only said he’d do that to appease those groups.
Musk tweeted, “a substantial coalition of political and social activist groups promised not to try to kill Twitter by starving it of advertising money in exchange for my agreement to this requirement.” “They messed up the deal.”
A large coalition of political/social activist groups agreed not to try to kill Twitter by starving us of advertising revenue if I agreed to this condition.
They broke the deal.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2022
The reason Twitter’s moderation guidelines were established as they were is what Musk is currently experiencing:
Businesses are discontinuing advertising because they don’t want their brand to be associated with harmful content. Every user can subscribe for $8 monthly to receive a verification badge after Musk assumes network control.
This caused numerous users to impersonate businesses, brands, and well-known people.
That, along with Musk’s modifications to his moderation policy and the subsequent unbanning of far-right individuals, has driven away advertisers.
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