A sting operation conducted by the conservative media outlet Project Veritas, has caught an alleged senior engineer at Twitter saying on camera that Twitter "does not believe in free speech" and has a left-wing bias.
The video – a compilation of short bites without full context – shows a man, introduced as Senior Engineer Siru Murugesan, admit that Twitter operates as a "socialist" company.
"We're all like commie as f**k," he says, "Ideologically, it does not make sense, because we're actually censoring the right, and not the left."
"I don't know if the two parties can truly coexist on one platform," he says.
The man suggests that, because of the prevailing environment, people working at Twitter often change their original views and become left-leaning.
It is important to note that Project Veritas has been known to deceptively edit videos to mislead viewers in the past. Siru Murugesan's identity has also not yet been verified.
Employees 'Revolted Against' Elon's Takeover
The man in the video says that his colleagues "hate" the fact that Elon Musk has signed a deal to acquire Twitter, and did all they could "to revolt against it."
"But at the end of the day, [the] board of directors have the say, and then they acted on their best interests cause they didn't wanna get sued."Alleged Twitter Engineer Siru Murugesan to Project Veritas
He says that people are also constantly worried for their jobs. "Oh my God. I'm at least like okay with (Elon's takeover). But some of my colleagues are like super left, left, left, left, left," he adds.
The man adds that Twitter's operating procedures are extremely relaxed and "essentially like everyone gets to do whatever they want."
Musk, a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist, believes that Twitter is too aggressive in moderating speech. He has indicated that he wants to "unlock the platform's potential" and make it a free speech haven.
"By 'free speech,' I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law," he said.
"If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people," he added.
Musk has now put the $44 billion deal "on hold" until the social media platform shows proof that bots constitute less than five percent of its daily average users.
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