Why the reaction to Elon Musk buying Twitter is like Trump's election victory

There's a strange familiarity in how some Twitter users are reacting to Elon Musk taking over the social media platform.

Already, people online have noticed an increase in discriminatory language under the pretense of "free speech" - something Musk has promised to bring to the platform.

One Twitter user, Alejandra Caraballo, tweeted examples of hateful language she stumbled on, mostly from people believing they can say whatever they want because of Musk's ownership.

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"We're off to quite a start with groyper Nazi trolls feeling explicitly emboldened by Elon to threaten murder and use racist, anti Semitic, and homophobic slurs," Caraballo wrote.

Other people expressed similar concerns leading some to compare the "free-for-all" mentality to when Donald Trump won the 2016 election.

After Trump became president, multiple reports indicated a rise in hate crimes across the US known as "the Trump Effect."

"Exposure to Trump's racially inflammatory speech caused individuals in our study to bring their prejudice to bear on perceptions of the norm environment toward Latinos, as well as in their behavior," a study from Cambridge University concluded in 2020.

Concerns that discriminatory language or hate speech could increase on Twitter have sparked a theory that advertisers will pull out of funding for the platform.

Musk assured advertisers and people on Twitter that it will not be a "free-for-all hellscape" and there will be moderation to some extent.

But his three-page statement has not seemed to offer solace to many.

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