NewsNation host Chris Cuomo called on billionaire Elon Musk and other tech leaders to tweak social media algorithms to help turn down the temperature of political discourse online.
“Businesses make choices,” Cuomo said on his nightly prime time program on Monday. “Elon, you can tell me to piss off, but I never would want anything bad to happen to you or your family or anything because of what you say.”
Musk, Cuomo argued, is one of the people who “can help here.”
“I think you and the other tech bros should change your algorithms to stop juicing and making money off the most provocative, destructive and extreme s—, because that’s what social media has become,” the host said. “It could be whatever we want to make it, and it’s a dumpster fire.”
The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week has renewed debate on social media and cable news about political violence in the U.S., as both sides claim the other is inciting violence against politicians and public figures.
Musk and others who preside over major social platforms, Cuomo said, should “trust that you’re catering to the few and not the many with the poison on your platforms.”
“How bad is it,” he asked. “We are flooded with ideas about whether what Charlie Kirk said somehow qualifies his murder.”
Cuomo often uses his nightly show to advocate for common ground and bipartisan solutions to complicated and hot-button political issues.
