Expressing his anger in a series of tweets, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has criticized big media companies that claim to the truth but ‘publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie’.
Elon further said he will create his own site for people to track journalist credibility. Earlier today, Tesla CEO Musk published a series of tweets ranting press about ‘the holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies who lay claim to the truth, but publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie, is why the public no longer respects them’.
The holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies who lay claim to the truth, but publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie, is why the public no longer respects them https://t.co/Ay2DwCOMkr
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018
As per BBC, the idea seemed to be driven by recent news reports about Tesla that Musk felt to be unfair. He further carried on to tweet about how the journalists are under pressure to bring maximum clicks or get fired.
Problem is journos are under constant pressure to get max clicks & earn advertising dollars or get fired. Tricky situation, as Tesla doesn’t advertise, but fossil fuel companies & gas/diesel car companies are among world’s biggest advertisers.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018
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Musk ultimately shared his plans to build a site where the general public can rate the truth of any article and track journalist credibility over time. He even tweeted that he plans to call his site ‘Pravda’. Musk even took a poll about creating a credibility site.
Create a media credibility rating site (that also flags propaganda botnets)
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018
He said for those media people who don’t want Pravda to exist can write an article and tell readers to vote against it. According to CNBC, Pravda actually means ‘truth’ in Russian and was the name of the official paper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
If you’re in media & don’t want Pravda to exist, write an article telling your readers to vote against it …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018
Musk later tweeted to call the raying site as ‘You’re Right!’, saying that he owns a site with that title but has at present have it automatically forward to social media site Facebook.
Maybe the media credibility rating site should be called “You’re Right!” I do actually own https://t.co/1JqqCF9inA, but for the moment I just have it automatically forward to Facebook News.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2018