Elon Musk is part of the problem of hate speech on Twitter

Illiberalism


Fig. 1. Photograph by Joachim F. Thurn, August 1991, Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F089030-0003, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE

Mauricio Saverese and Diane Jeantet, “Lula defeats Bolsonaro to again become Brazil’s president,” Associated Press, October 30, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/jair-bolsonaro-religion-caribbean-voting-ed2130a095ca42ff1be324a3dea9f355

Anthony Faiola, Paulina Villegas, and Gabriela Sá Pessoa, “Lula defeats Bolsonaro to win third term as Brazil’s president,” Washington Post, October 30, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/30/lula-wins-brazil-election/


Twitter


Fig. 1. “Elon Musk shared a video of his entrance on his Twitter account.” Photograph attributed to Elon Musk, October 26, 2022, via the New York Post,[1] fair use.

The social media platform said it has been targeted with an attempt to make users think Twitter has dropped or weakened its content policies after the world’s richest man bought the company for $44bn (£38bn) last week.

Twitter’s head of safety and integrity said those running the site had not changed content policies but had been subject to “an organised effort to make people think we have”.

In a Twitter thread posted on Sunday, Yoel Roth said the company had seen a “ton” of tweets posted by a small number of accounts featuring slurs and other derogatory terms. To illustrate the scale of the attack, he said more than 50,000 tweets that repeatedly used one unspecified slur came from just 300 accounts.

Roth said most of those accounts were “inauthentic” and the users involved had been banned.[2]

Content moderation policy changes may not have changed,[3] but the damage has been done:[4]


Long-time Internet users know from long and painful experience that there is no value in responding to trolls—it only encourages them.

The ADL, a Jewish advocacy group that examines anti-Semitism in the U.S., said it identified more than 1,200 tweets and retweets spreading anti-Semitic memes and called it a coordinated effort that followed Mr. Musk’s takeover. The Network Contagion Research Institute, which studies online social threats, tweeted data Friday showing that the use of the N-word on Twitter jumped 500% in the previous 12 hours.

The National Basketball Association star LeBron James quoted the data Saturday, tweeting, “I dont know Elon Musk and, tbh, I could care less who owns twitter. But I will say that if this is true, I hope he and his people take this very seriously because this is scary.” He added: “So many damn unfit people saying hate speech is free speech.”[5]

The trouble on Twitter, however, is that its new chief executive officer is a big part of the problem:

Mr. [Elon] Musk also waded into controversy. On Sunday morning, he tweeted a link to an internet post speculatively calling into question what happened in the violent Friday morning attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,” Mr. Musk tweeted. He later deleted the tweet.[6]

The “speculation that Elon Musk retweeted was vile, despicable, and unfounded, itself hate speech, and part of a pattern of utterances of a similar kind in which white Christian nationalists use yet more hate speech to fend off accusations that their hate speech provokes violence.

I like LeBron James’ formulation: “So many damn unfit people saying hate speech is free speech.”[7] As I have elsewhere pointed out, “the evil here is enormous, . . . encompassing many issues that distinguish a civilized society from barbarity. We tolerate it at our own peril.”[8]

Thomas Barrabi, “Elon Musk barges into Twitter HQ as deal nears: ‘Let that sink in,’” New York Post, October 26, 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/10/26/elon-musk-barges-into-twitter-headquarters-as-deal-nears/

Rebecca Bellan, “Now Elon Musk says he won’t fire 75% of Twitter’s staff,” TechCrunch, October 26, 2022, https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/26/now-elon-musk-says-he-wont-fire-75-of-twitters-staff/

Sheila Dang, “Exclusive: Twitter is losing its most active users, internal documents show,” Reuters, October 26, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-where-did-tweeters-go-twitter-is-losing-its-most-active-users-internal-2022-10-25/

Elon Musk, “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” Twitter, October 26, 2022, https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585341984679469056

Elon Musk, “the bird is freed,” Twitter, October 28, 2022, https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585841080431321088

Faiz Siddiqui and Elizabeth Dwoskin, “Top Twitter executives fired as Elon Musk takeover begins,” Washington Post, October 27, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/27/twitter-elon-musk/

Lauren Thomas and Alexa Corse, “Elon Musk Twitter Deal Completed, CEO and CFO Immediately Fired,” Wall Street Journal, October 27, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-completes-twitter-takeover-11666918031

Jake Johnson, “‘Dangerous for Us All’: Elon Musk, World’s Richest Man, Completes Twitter Takeover,” Common Dreams, October 28, 2022, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/10/28/dangerous-us-all-elon-musk-worlds-richest-man-completes-twitter-takeover

Jeremy C. Owens, “Elon Musk on the hook to pay more than $200 million to 3 fired Twitter execs,” MarketWatch, October 28, 2022, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-must-pay-more-than-200-million-to-3-fired-twitter-execs-11666927154

Greg Sargent, “The hidden danger lurking behind Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover,” Washington Post, October 28, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/28/elon-musk-twitter-takeover-russia-ukraine-war-big-tech/

Mira Sorvino, “Anyone using any form of hate speech will be immediately unfollowed, blocked, and either called out, not responded to or both. There is no place for hate speech here,” Twitter, October 28, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/29/twitter-alternatives/

Shonda Rhimes, “Not hanging around for whatever Elon has planned. Bye,” Twitter, October 29, 2022, https://puck.news/elons-clues-and-an-ma-hail-mary/

Alexa Corse and Salvador Rodriguez, “Twitter Is Drafting Broad Job Cuts in Whirlwind First Weekend Under Elon Musk,” Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-is-drafting-broad-job-cuts-days-after-elon-musks-takeover-11667143301

Dan Milmo, “Twitter trolls bombard platform after Elon Musk takeover,” Guardian, October 30, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/30/twitter-trolls-bombard-platform-after-elon-musk-takeover


  1. [1]Thomas Barrabi, “Elon Musk barges into Twitter HQ as deal nears: ‘Let that sink in,’” New York Post, October 26, 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/10/26/elon-musk-barges-into-twitter-headquarters-as-deal-nears/
  2. [2]Dan Milmo, “Twitter trolls bombard platform after Elon Musk takeover,” Guardian, October 30, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/30/twitter-trolls-bombard-platform-after-elon-musk-takeover
  3. [3]Dan Milmo, “Twitter trolls bombard platform after Elon Musk takeover,” Guardian, October 30, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/30/twitter-trolls-bombard-platform-after-elon-musk-takeover
  4. [4]Sheila Dang, “Exclusive: Twitter is losing its most active users, internal documents show,” Reuters, October 26, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-where-did-tweeters-go-twitter-is-losing-its-most-active-users-internal-2022-10-25/
  5. [5]Alexa Corse and Salvador Rodriguez, “Twitter Is Drafting Broad Job Cuts in Whirlwind First Weekend Under Elon Musk,” Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-is-drafting-broad-job-cuts-days-after-elon-musks-takeover-11667143301
  6. [6]Alexa Corse and Salvador Rodriguez, “Twitter Is Drafting Broad Job Cuts in Whirlwind First Weekend Under Elon Musk,” Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-is-drafting-broad-job-cuts-days-after-elon-musks-takeover-11667143301
  7. [7]LeBron James, quoted in Alexa Corse and Salvador Rodriguez, “Twitter Is Drafting Broad Job Cuts in Whirlwind First Weekend Under Elon Musk,” Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-is-drafting-broad-job-cuts-days-after-elon-musks-takeover-11667143301
  8. [8]David Benfell, “It might be time to bring back frontal lobotomies,” Not Housebroken, October 27, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/10/25/it-might-be-time-to-bring-back-frontal-lobotomies/

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