The thorny national debate about Twitter’s future skidded into Silicon Valley’s largest local government this month as Santa Clara County grappled over whether it should abandon the increasingly contentious social media platform or ride it out with new owner Elon Musk.
The county has over 40,000 followers on the platform and considers it a powerful tool to get information to its roughly 2 million residents. But District Attorney Jeff Rosen — who oversees the largest prosecutor’s office in Northern California — was fuming, noting there had been an “explosion” in hate speech on the platform after Musk’s October takeover.
The county decided to stay. The D.A. decided to go.
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