Elon Musk welcomed the success of his moderation policy in early December. But, many signals go against this assertion.
The hate is back on Twitter. Or, more exactly, she expresses herself there with much more ease than before. This is the conclusion of work carried out in the United States, and which the New York Times echoed on December 2, 2022. A conclusion against which Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, rebelled, calling her ” totally wrong ».
The observations made by several organizations, since the takeover of the social network by the American businessman, underline a sharp increase in anti-Semitic messages (a jump of more than 60% two weeks after the acquisition of Twitter). As for homophobic content, their daily appearance has increased by more than 58%.
Even in the field of the fight against terrorism, studies suggest a very clear relaxation of the community site. During the first twelve days after Elon Musk took office, 450 accounts controlled by the Islamic State organization were detected. This is an increase of 69% compared to the previous twelve days.
These various analyzes were provided by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. ” Elon Musk sent a Bat Signal to all racists, misogynists and homophobes that Twitter was accessible. They reacted accordingly “Commented Imran Ahmed, the head of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
Elon Musk is happy with his moderation policy on Twitter
The increase in illicit speech is also favored by the policy of Elon Musk. He found it appropriate to pardon a huge number of banned accounts, based on an online survey — instead of using the moderation board he had promised to put in place. More than 12,000 profiles have been reactivated, including neo-Nazis and anti-Semites.
On the same day the New York Times article was published, Elon Musk released his own results, suggesting its decisive impact on moderation. In a graph ranging from October 17 to November 30, 2022, the display of hateful content, after a spectacular peak, would have fallen to a lower threshold than that previously observed.
” The number of hate speech impressions (number of times the tweet was seen) continues to drop, despite a significant increase in the number of users! […] Freedom of expression does not mean freedom of access. Negativity should and will get less reach than positivity “, he said. According to him, hateful content weighs less than 0.1% of total impressions. It is surprising, however, that while the amount of hateful content is on the rise, the impressions of this speech are falling. Elon Musk does not give further details.
The limits of Elon Musk’s strategy were evident with the sequence around rapper Kanye West. He delivered several anti-Semitic messages, prompting Elon Musk to crack down, even though he presented himself a few months earlier as an “absolutist of freedom of expression”. This is not the first time that the singer has been ejected from the platform.
Twitter reacts less quickly to reports
The shortcomings of moderation on Twitter were also highlighted from the side of the European Commission. If Brussels observes an overall drop in mobilization among the platforms that have signed the EU Code of Conduct (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.), it is Twitter that ” records the largest decline over a year “.
As part of this code of good conduct, platforms are required to process reports of hate messages within 24 hours. In 2020, partner sites managed to process 90.4% of notifications on time. This statistic fell to 81% in 2021 and 64.4% in 2022. Only TikTok remains on a positive curve.
The collapse of moderation on Twitter is partly caused by a sharp drop in the social network’s ability to have sufficient staff to handle reports. In mid-November, we learned that the contracts with thousands of providers have been stopped, depriving the platform of several thousand moderators.
On November 30, Twitter however held a very different speech: its team thus promises to continue “ his diligent work to protect the platform from hateful behavior, abuse and any violation of the Twitter rules. The team remains strong and well-resourced “. However, it was also specified that the service will increasingly rely on automated detection to manage moderation. Obviously, the results are not there yet.
