Con­tent mod­er­a­tion emerged as a promi­nent theme dur­ing Elon Musk’s first week at Twit­ter, espe­cial­ly fol­low­ing the con­tro­ver­sial actions and state­ments of the musi­cian and fash­ion design­er Ye, for­mer­ly known as Kanye West. Ye’s “White Lives Mat­ter” T‑shirts and an abra­sive tweet about Jew­ish peo­ple had sparked a social media firestorm, result­ing in his ban from Twit­ter. Musk’s sub­se­quent inter­ac­tion with Ye high­light­ed the com­plex­i­ties of free speech and the chal­lenges of impul­sive con­tent mod­er­a­tion deci­sions. Musk pro­posed cre­at­ing a con­tent mod­er­a­tion coun­cil to address these issues, empha­siz­ing the need for diverse glob­al per­spec­tives, but his com­mit­ment wavered as the con­cep­t’s exe­cu­tion became less of a pri­or­i­ty for him.

This chap­ter also intro­duces Yoel Roth, Twit­ter’s thir­ty-five-year-old who sud­den­ly became respon­si­ble for con­tent mod­er­a­tion in the wake of legal offi­cer Vijaya Gad­de’s fir­ing. Roth, despite his pre­vi­ous crit­i­cisms of con­ser­v­a­tives and firm Demo­c­ra­t­ic lean­ings, hoped to find a mid­dle ground with Musk. Their ini­tial inter­ac­tions shed light on Musk’s fears of inter­nal sab­o­tage and his inten­tion to con­sol­i­date access to Twit­ter’s secu­ri­ty tools.

The nar­ra­tive unfolds with Musk’s impul­sive deci­sions to rein­state con­tro­ver­sial accounts like the Baby­lon Bee and Jor­dan Peter­son, high­light­ing the ten­sion between Musk’s vision for unbri­dled free speech and the real­i­ty of man­ag­ing a social plat­form. Roth’s strat­e­gy to mit­i­gate this includ­ed non-removal pol­i­cy inter­ven­tions, aim­ing for a bal­anced approach to con­tent mod­er­a­tion with­out out­right bans.

Key fig­ures such as David Sacks and Jason Cala­ca­n­is emerge as influ­en­tial advi­sors to Musk, bring­ing their own per­spec­tives on free speech and mod­er­a­tion. Their involve­ment under­scores the chaot­ic tran­si­tion phase at Twit­ter, marked by Roth’s efforts to address a spike in hate­ful con­tent fol­low­ing Musk’s takeover. The chap­ter reflects on the com­plex­i­ty of con­tent mod­er­a­tion and the con­tin­u­ous strug­gle between ide­o­log­i­cal­ly dri­ven deci­sions and the prac­ti­cal neces­si­ty for coher­ent, con­sis­tent poli­cies to gov­ern online speech.