Elon Musk makes use of Twitter ‘to amplify his unhealthy pondering,’ says NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Musk, the NBA nice wrote, is “unable to use using details in reaching conclusions about social and political points” however possesses “an enormous megaphone to amplify his unhealthy pondering to contaminate others.” 

Abdul-Jabbar centered on Musk’s ongoing battle in opposition to the media, arguing the billionaire “romanticizes it—and himself” by portraying it as a “battle between a person who loves free speech and fact and corrupt information shops slanting truths.” 

Musk has described himself as a “free-speech absolutist” and has seen advertisers frightened about extra offensive content material on the platform pull again spending. 

Earlier this month, Musk tweeted that the “tragedy” of the New York Instances—which has aggressively reported on Twitter and Tesla—“is that their propaganda isn’t even attention-grabbing,” and he compared its “unreadable” Twitter feed to the “equal of diarrhea.” That adopted the Instances refusing to pay for a beforehand free blue verification test mark, which Twitter eliminated two weekends in the past as a part of Musk’s push for extra subscriptions. 

Musk has additionally been tussling with NPR, labeling it final week as “state-affiliated media”—how Twitter refers to China’s and Russia’s state-controlled media—after which quietly altering that on Saturday to “government-funded media” after days of criticism. NPR, which receives on common lower than 1% of its funding from the federal government, disagrees with each labels and has stopped tweeting information, the primary of a number of information organizations to depart Twitter amid this fracas.

Abdul-Jabbar known as it “stunning” that Musk utilized the primary label “with out having completed a fact-check, altering it solely after a reporter identified that NPR shouldn’t be state-affiliated.

“This makes one query how he kinds any of his opinions, since details aren’t vital to him,” Abdul-Jabbar added. 

Abdul-Jabbar additionally linked to a Guardian report from earlier this month repeating accusations that Twitter had bowed to authorities strain in India to dam the accounts of journalists, politicians, and activists important of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. That quantities to Twitter really serving as state-affiliated media for India’s authorities, Abdul-Jabbar argued.

“A lot chest thumping, so little mind utilizing,” he added.

That Abdul-Jabbar shared his criticism of Musk on Substack can also be price noting. After the e-newsletter platform introduced a brand new Twitter-like service final week, customers began reporting that Musk’s platform was censoring retweets of posts that included a Substack hyperlink (they seem like working once more, for now). This could be additional proof of the sample Abdul-Jabbar famous: a knee-jerk determination, made with out correct vetting, shortly reversed.

Abdul-Jabbar additionally famous Twitter’s new coverage of responding to any journalist’s questions with a poop emoji, saying that habits is “not precisely the way you nurture free press in a democracy.”

Fortune reached out to Twitter for feedback however obtained no instant replies, past the emoji.