It’s been less than a day since Elon Musk began Twitter, but his elevation to the top of Twitter is already having an effect on the platform. Following the news that the deal was completed, and that he had begun purging some of the company’s executive staff, some groups opted to test Twitter’s moderation rules.
The Washington Post that “racial slurs were posted rampantly overnight,” in the hours immediately after Musk’s takeover. Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), which is a nonprofit that studies disinformation on social media platforms, announced Friday morning that they had noticed a sharp rise in the use of n-words on Twitter.
“There is evidence that bad actors may be trying to test the limits. @Twitter,” the group said. “Numerous posts on 4chan encourage users not to use derogatory slurs.”
Evidence suggests that bad actors are trying to test the limits on @Twitter. Several posts on 4chan encourage users to amplify derogatory slurs.
In the example above, the number of people using the n-word in the last twelve hours has nearly doubled compared to the previous average. pic.twitter.com/mEqziaWuMF
— Network Contagion Research Institute (@ncri_io) October 28, 2022
A Twitter spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment. Both The PostNCRI and 4Chan point out that much of this appears to be organized via platforms like TheDonald and TheDonald, where users encourage one another to spread hate.
For now, it’s unclear how widespread these efforts are. Similar to past harassment campaigns, small groups of trolls can have a significant impact, particularly in times of company turmoil. According to Musk, Musk is a billionaire. BloombergHas Chief executive officer duties within the company that he would not be reinstating any banned accounts or making “major” changes to the company’s content policies until he could for a “content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints.”
Twitter will form a content moderation board with widely varied viewpoints.
This council will not make any major content decisions, or account reinstatements before it convenes.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
He also to a Twitter account called Catturd, which had complained about shadowbans and losing followers, that he would be “digging in more.” Musk has previously that he wants to do away with permanent bans on the platform and that he would “err on the side of, if in doubt, let the speech exist.”
Notably, the increase in racist slurs occurs one day after Musk appealed , saying that he didn’t want to turn the platform into a “free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences.”
But the increase in hate speech has further fueled concerns that Twitter’s years-long effort to clean up its platforms could be reversed under Musk. Already, he has fired the company’s top policy executive, Who was the one who played a in shaping the company’s content rules. That’s concerning, says Paul Barrett, deputy director of NYU’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.
“The danger here is that in the name of ‘free speech,’ Musk will turn back the clock and make Twitter into a more potent engine of hatred, divisiveness, and misinformation about elections, public health policy, and international affairs,” Barrett said in a statement. “This is not going to be pretty.”
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