X Remains a Cesspool of Hate and Disinformation as Yaccarino Steps Down Claiming Dubious Free-Speech Victory

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced her plans to leave the social-media platform. Yaccarino came on board in 2023, just as the Elon Musk-owned network was facing a mass exodus of advertisers due to its amplification of hateful content and disinformation. She had previously served as a marketing executive at NBCUniversal.

“When @elonmusk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company,” Yaccarino said in a farewell post on the platform. “I’m immensely grateful to him for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech.”

In reality, Elon Musk transformed Twitter into a destructive, junk-filled platform. From removing critical teams — such as trust and safety staff as well as content moderators — to making the blue-check verification a pay-to-play feature to boost company revenues, Musk made X his own personal platform. He used it to pursue personal vendettas, amplify vile viewpoints, suppress or remove legitimate speech that he disliked, and advance the agenda of other authoritarian figures. Despite this damning evidence, Musk and Yaccarino continue to describe themselves as absolute champions of free speech.

Earlier this week, X users revealed that Musk’s Grok AI chatbot was sharing antisemitic and white-supremacist comments. In its responses to user queries, Grok praised Hitler and his genocidal methods while suggesting that people with Jewish names are the ones actually spreading online hate and disinformation. 

Nora Benavidez, Free Press senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights, said:    

“It’s as ludicrous as it is offensive for Yaccarino to frame her time at X as a win for free speech. Musk hired her to lure back advertisers fleeing the platform after he turned it into a cesspool of hate and disinformation. Yaccarino’s legacy is her failure to manipulate companies to advertise at previous levels, and now she’s trying to mask that failure in First Amendment rhetoric. No one is buying that X is a free-speech platform — it’s a megaphone for bigotry, conspiracy theories and bullying people into silence. Musk has no interest in upholding free expression or protecting platform users. It’s essential to name the harm clearly and reclaim free speech as a force for truth and democracy — not a shield for those who profit from undermining it.”