‘Immoral, dangerous!' Playbill Quits Twitter Amid Elon Musk Takeover Chaos

Theatrical guide is latest brand to leave social network.

Playbill quits Twitter. (REUTERS)

In it's last tweet, Playbill told its more than 412,000 followers that as of Nov. 11, it will no longer be active on Twitter across its five accounts and warned, regardless of verification marks, “If you see a tweet from a Twitter account that contains our name, please understand it is not us.”

The theater guide that is symbolic if not synonymous with Broadway went on to explain how in recent weeks Twitter has greatly expanded its tolerance for hate, negativity and misinformation and that as a respected news outlet, it felt it would be irresponsible to continue on a platform where readers might have a hard time distinguishing real news from fake.

Since acquiring the social network on Oct. 27, Elon Musk has met with criticism for mismanaging the platform. In his first weeks of ownership, the tech billionaire fired half of the company along with executive leadership, and disabled content moderation tools. This has caused an  exodus of brands from the social network fearful of having their ads and tweets appear next to hate speech.

“The issue concerning us all is content moderation and its impact on BRAND SAFETY/SUITABILITY. You say you're committed to moderation, but you just laid off 75% of the moderation team!” said MMA Global President Lou Paskalis in a tweet to Musk.

Others have been urging brands to take a pause. NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson tweeted, “It is immoral, dangerous, and highly destructive to our democracy for any advertiser to fund a platform that fuels hate speech, election denialism and conspiracy theories. Until actions are taken to make this a safe space, we call on companies to pause all advertising on Twitter.” Playbill will still be active on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, pending an ongoing review.