Dave Davies calls out Elon Musk over Twitter warnings on The Kinks’ posts
“We have been called The Kinks since 1963.”
Elon Musk’s Twitter and Dave Davies of The Kinks. Credit: Chesnot / Scott Dudelson / Getty
The Kinks’ Dave Davies has taken Twitter owner Elon Musk to task over Twitter’s content warnings on the band’s posts.
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After noticing that a recent post the band shared was labelled as “sensitive content” on Twitter, frontman Dave Davies took to the platform to call out the billionaire over the warning label. “Dear Elon Musk would Twitter please stop putting warnings on everything from ‘The Kinks.’ We are just trying to promote our Kinks music,” he wrote. “The Kinks are a brand name. We have been called The Kinks since 1963.”
The Kinks are a brand name. We have been called the Kinks since 1963 https://t.co/bKk1PJURfv
— Dave Davies (@davedavieskinks) February 15, 2023
A user later responded to Davies pointing out that a new Twitter notice stated the warning label had been removed following an appeal, but the warning was still visible on their device. Davies replied, “That’s impossible. The word robot should be banned. We got robots running our lives. At least I’m a Kink and not a fukin robot.”
Musk’s stewardship of the platform has not been met with universal praise from the music community, to put it mildly. Artists including Trent Reznor, Elton John and Liz Phair have deactivated their accounts since the billionaire’s troubled takeover of the platform last year, with Jack White posting a long statement on Instagram in response to Musk’s reinstatement of former US president Donald Trump to the platform.
In it, he wrote, “This is straight up you trying to help a fascist have a platform so you can eventually get your tax breaks.
I mean, how many more billions do you need that you have to risk democracy itself to obtain it?”
White was joined in his criticism over Musk’s decision, which was made following a Twitter poll of the billionaire’s followers on the platform, by other artists including Blink-182’s Tom Delonge, Mogwai guitarist Stuart Braithwaite and more.