Elton John Has Left Twitter For One Big Reason
The ongoing Twitter battle continues as everyone scrolls through and tries to decide what is up and what is down on a topic that is a lot more complicated and convoluted than it is represented to be. Celebrities are acting predictably as they leave the platform that is undergoing drastic change, under the new owner, Elon Musk. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Elton John is the latest celebrity to decide enough is enough as he announced he is finished using Twitter and will no longer be present on the platform.
A lot has changed at Twitter since the Tesla owner took over the most popular social media app in the world, including electing to no longer enforce the policy that prevented misinformation from being spread during the COVID crisis. The policy being reversed is the reason that Elton John has decided he is moving on from the platform and no longer supporting Twitter. The Circle of Life singer said that his entire career was built on the goal of using music to bring people closer together, and he is no longer going to participate in an app that divides people.
He isn’t the only celebrity that has criticized Elon Musk and his Twitter policies before leaving the bird app, model Gigi Hadid called the app a cesspool before leaving her account, and Toni Braxton says that Twitter is no longer the safe space it used to be. Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes, actor and comedian Jim Carrey, and singer/songwriter Jack White are also among those who have left Twitter. Whoopi Goldberg also joined Elton John and said goodbye to her account while she appeared on an episode of her show, The View, but left it open by saying she may come back when it settles down.
The last point made by Goldberg brings up an interesting perspective on the rash of celebrities leaving the platform; their accounts are mostly not being deleted, just going quiet. Digital strategists are saying many of them are not deleting their accounts because they have gained massive followings, and if they have to start from scratch, they will never gain them back. Instead, they simply stop posting; of course, it amounts to the same thing in large part because if they are gone, many of their followers are too.
But the conflict is much more convoluted than either side wants to admit. Sure, on the surface, many people on the right believe that Musk is a champion of free speech, but he just banned Kanye West, so that raises questions. On the flip side, Musk’s release of the Twitter files shows that there have been some extraordinarily biased and one-sided practices regarding misinformation, which raises questions on that side too.
It has essentially come down to this: the best thing about social media is that everyone has a voice, and people who would otherwise never be heard can contribute to social conversations. And the worst part of social media is that everyone has a voice, so the people we shouldn’t listen to continue to have a voice. Elton John is deciding not to listen to the voices on Twitter, which makes sense, considering that it has become more challenging to know who you can listen to and who you can’t.
