Strong words from @PresidentIRL.
President Michael D. Higgins has criticised Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, citing the latter’s apparent “incredible and dangerous narcissism”.
President Higgins made the remarks during his keynote speaker address at a conference on climate change at Dublin City University on Thursday (5 May).
Though the President did not mention Musk by name, he pointed to the recent Twitter deal as a particularly concerning bit of business.
“Is it a great success that a multi-billionaire would be now deciding what is appropriate for people to exchange by way of discourse?” asked President Higgins.
“I think it can hardly be described as anything other than a manifestation of an incredible and dangerous narcissism,” he added, prompting applause from those in attendance.
Musk finalised his lavish high-profile purchase in late April, to the tune of $44 billion.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” said Musk after the deal was announced to the public.
“I also wanted to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.
“Twitter has tremendous potential,” he added.
“I look forward to working with the company and community of users to unlock it.”
You can watch the President’s speech in full below.
WATCH #DCUClimate22: President Michael D Higgins @PresidentIRL delivers the keynote address for the DCU Centre for Climate & Society's inaugural conference 'Climate Action: Ireland's Role in a Changing World' @DCUClimate @DeloitteIreland https://t.co/9fZ6oBozCx
— Dublin City University (@DCU) May 5, 2022
Featured Image of President Higgins via Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie
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