Elon Musk slams BBC journalist on Twitter hate speech: ‘You don’t know what…'

In a wide-ranging interview, Twitter CEO Elon Musk accused the BBC of covering up the side-effects of Covid vaccines saying that the media organisation had double standards.

“Does the BBC hold itself at all responsible for misinformation regarding masking and the side effects of vaccinations. And not reporting on that at all And what about the fact that the BBC was put under pressure by the British government to change editorial policy?", Elon Musk said combatively when asked about misinformation on Twitter.

During the surprise interview at Twitter's San Francisco offices, Elon Musk accused the journalist of lying after he claimed there had been an increase in hate speech on Twitter.

Read more: Musk ‘not aware’ about Twitter deleting content on BBC's Modi documentary

“I say sir that you don't know what you are talking about... because you cannot give me a single example of hateful content, not even one tweet. You claimed that hateful content is high. That is false, you just lied," Elon Musk said.

The journalist- James Clayton- defended his claim by citing an organisation that had warned about a rise in hateful posts on the social media platform.

But Elon Musk insisted that hate speech had fallen, saying, “People will say all sorts of nonsense.” On BBC's “government funded media” twitter label, Elon Musk said, “We want it to be as truthful and accurate as possible – we’re adjusting the label. I know the BBC wasn't thrilled about being labelled state affiliated media.”