Kinks-shamed: Dave Davies asks Elon Musk to stop flagging band-related tweets

The Kinks’ Dave Davies has appealed to Elon Musk to stop putting content warnings on posts related to the band.

The lead guitarist and co-founder of the band pleaded with the Twitter owner after one of Davies’s tweets promoting a video carried a sensitive content warning, thought to be because of the band’s name.

In a tweet, Davies said: “Dear Elon Musk, would Twitter please stop putting warnings on everything from ‘The Kinks.’ We are just trying to promote our Kinks music.”

Davies posted a screenshot of one of his tweets linking to a Kinks video on TikTok, which featured a message at the bottom that read: “We put a warning on this Tweet because it might have sensitive content.”

Davies added: “The Kinks are a brand name. We have been called the Kinks since 1963.”

Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist”, bought Twitter in October last year, and subsequently reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account after users on the social media platform voted by a slim majority to lift a ban on the former US president.

Trump’s account was suspended in 2021 after the January 6 Capitol riot, for violating Twitter guidelines and because of the risk of “further incitement of violence”.

Concerns have been raised repeatedly about Twitter’s algorithm, which helps determine the information users see. Platformer recently reported that Musk made changes to the platform’s algorithm so his tweets would be more widely viewed.

A user replied to Davies, pointing out that though Twitter said the warning was removed after an appeal, it was still visible. Davies said: “That’s impossible. The word robot should be banned. We got robots running our lives. At least I’m a Kink and not a fucking robot.”

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Davies said it was not the first time Twitter had issued a warning over the band’s tweets. “It’s been a good few months … I don’t know what’s going on, if they’ve got a block on my name, or the Kinks’ name, we don’t know. I wish I had better answers.

“The thing is, where’s it gonna end? There’s so many different words and phrases – people from Liverpool have slightly different meanings for words than people from London. It’s the same all over the world.”

He added: “We’re just promoting the Kinks’ music, my music, my book, and we want to be able to do what we do. It’s that simple.”

The Kinks were formed in London in 1963 by Davies and his brother Ray, and have released a series of hit songs, including You Really Got Me. The band recently announced a two-part anthology series called The Journey in celebration of the 60th anniversary of their formation.