Elon Musk has targeted outgoing White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci and Twitters former head of safety Yael Roth in a new string of tweets that appear to align him further with Americas right wing.
My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci, the billionaire tweeted in the early hours of Sunday, alluding to the practice of announcing ones pronouns to inform others of their preferred gender. The tweet both mocked the left-wing embracement of gender fluidity and highlighted a campaign to charge Fauci over his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The joke came 45 minutes after Musk posted another meme depicting a scene from the Lord of the Rings, where Faucis face is placed on top of Grima Wormtongue a corrupted character from the trilogy whose advice pushes King Theoden into a destitute state. Bidens face is placed on top of the Kings, with Fauci whispering Just one more lockdown, my king in an apparent criticism of one of Faucis COVID mitigation measures, which has not been in place for over a year.
One day before attacking Fauci, Musk targeted Yael Roth until recently the head of safety at Twitter and an ally of Musk for advocating child sexualization. Musk posted a tweet of an excerpt from Roths 300-page doctoral dissertation, titled Gay Data, which argues that Grindr should not try to stop people under 18 from using the gay hook-up/dating app (as they find ways to use the app anyway), but instead try to focus on crafting safety strategies to help safely connect queer young adults.
Musk attacked Roth who is gay himself by accusing him of promoting adult content to kids, tweeting out, looks like Yoel is arguing in favor of children being able to access adult internet services in his PhD thesis.
Attracting online trolls
Musks attacks on Roth and Fauci parallel increasingly common statements made by online trolls, conspiracy theorists, and right-wing extremists.
The 81-year-old Fauci, who is stepping down this month as the White Houses chief medical adviser after 50 years of service, has been one of the most prominent targets for online attacks, sharing on the BBCs Americast podcast, that he and his family and children have all been targeted by what he calls lowlife trolls.
Part of the harassment directed at Fauci comes out of the conspiracy theories that accuse him of plotting to control or harm people with COVID-19 and its vaccines. Fauci has consistently spoken out against these COVID conspiracy theories, calling them preposterous and attacks on science. Much of this abuse has also been targeted at Bill Gates, whose charitable foundation has funded initiatives to develop and roll out COVID-19 vaccines.
Meanwhile, Roth has also been a target of right-wing attacks, along with Twitters ex-legal head Vijaya Gadde, over the social media networks decision to ban former President Donald Trump from the platform after the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Roths sexual orientation may also give more ammunition to far-right voices that have been increasingly accusing LGBTQ+ people with the baseless trope that they are sexual predators and pedophiles who groom children to abuse them. The Anti-Defamation Leagues Center for Extremism writes that this growing rhetoric has led to a spike in harassment, threats, and violence targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
Removing child exploitation is priority #1
After his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Musk said that removing child exploitation content from the social media was his top priority, but so far his actions have not aligned with his words.
Bloomberg reported that the once-20-person team responsible for preventing child sexual exploitation at Twitter had been gutted in Musks chaotic workforce cullings. And while some pedophilia-related hashtags had been removed from the platform since Musks takeover, these changes were already in the works before the acquisition took effect, Bloomberg reported.
When Musk tried to take credit for these actions, tweeting that Twitter had refused to take action on child exploitation for years, former chief executive officer Jack Dorsey, who is friendly with Musk, tweeted this is false.
This is also not the first time Musk has accused someone online of having pedophilic tendancies. After 12 members of a youth football team got stuck in a cave in Thailand, Musk accused a British caver who was involved in the rescue of being a pedo guy and one of Musks aides paid $500,000 to hire a private investigator in a failed effort to back up his accusations.
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