Supermodel Gigi Hadid announced on Sunday that she has quit Twitter as it was no longer a ‘safe place’ for anyone after American businessman Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform for USD 44 billion. On the heels of Twitter's mass layoffs, the 27-year-old supermodel turned to her Instagram Stories to let her followers know that she's no longer on the micro-blogging platform. She even called the social media site a ‘cesspool of hate & bigotry.’
“I deactivated my Twitter account today. For a long time, but especially with its new leadership, it’s becoming more and more of a cesspool of hate & bigotry, and its not a place I want to be a part of. Only sorry to the fans, who I’ve loved connecting with for a decade via Twitter, but I can't say it's a safe place for anyone, nor a social platform that will do more good than harm (sic),” the supermodel wrote in her Instagram Stories.
Alongside her statement, Gigi also included Human Rights Counsel Shannon Raj Singh's tweet about being laid off from the tech giant. Shannon's post read, “Yesterday was my last day at Twitter: the entire Human Rights team has been cut from the company. I am enormously proud of the work we did to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights, to protect those at-risk in global conflicts & crises including Ethiopia.”
According to sources, Twitter fired roughly half of its workforce on November 4 with an email to staff stating that the cuts were “necessary to ensure the company's success moving forward.” A handful of employees moved quickly to file a class action lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco on behalf of Twitter workers, said sources. Defending his decision, Elon, who announced that he'll charge USD 8 a month for verified users who have a blue tick, said, “There is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.”
Aside from Gigi, many famous names have also decided to quit the platform, including Sara Bareilles, Amber Heard, Toni Braxton, Mick Foley, and Grey's Anatomy screenwriter Shonda Rhimes, since Musk officially became the owner and CEO of the social media platform on October 27.