Chris Anderson, the CEO of TED, wrote an open letter to tech billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday over the Tesla owner's posts on X (formerly called Twitter). In a lengthy letter to Elon Musk, Anderson expressed his concerns over the latter's recent social media posts. According to Anderson, Musk is neglecting the 'core tenets of journalism and is failing to follow the fairness doctrine.
Anderson in his letter also cites examples and said that some of the posts by Musk could 'literally get someone killed.' A post shared for the same by Anderson mentioned that Anderson is not only the one who thinks that the posts shared by Elon Musk are concerning. "With a certain amount of trepidation, I'm posting this open letter to @elonmusk, someone I have admired but who, right now, is causing me concern," Anderson notes in the post.?
The letter by Anderson starts by mentioning the achievements of the tech billionaire in both technological as well as entrepreneurial sectors. He highlights the fact that Musk owns over 200 million followers on X, and the words that he writes make him 'the century's single most influential writer.'
He added that buying Twitter was a gamble, and it paid off well to the point that Musk can use it to massively impact the world, including changing governments. Moreover, X has the potential to replace most of the mainstream media, as it is a new form of citizen journalism.?
And Elon Musk, being a huge personality, can make change; hence his efforts to make X the respected home of citizen journalism can fail if the journalistic principles are not followed. "It¡¯s the fairness doctrine," wrote Anderson.?
Continuing to write the letter, Anderson mentions that the posts of Elon Musk on criminal justice could majorly impact a larger section of the public from different corners of the globe. "So, for example, when you tell hundreds of millions of people that someone should be hanged or jailed for outrageous crimes against humanity, just possibly you should first sound out what those who know those people really well would say about them," he noted.?
Anderson further notes that some of the recent posts of Elon Musk 'could literally get someone killed.' Suggesting a way to avoid this, the TED chief wrote, "By far the simplest way you could do this, Elon, is simply to thoughtfully edit what you yourself post."