Just before the dramatic acquisition of Twitter, Elon Musk shared his frustrations with fans regarding censorship and content moderation on social media platforms. He promised to create an environment where people could speak freely – an ‘inclusive arena of free speech’, ensuring, of course, that free expression of opinion does not turn into hate speech.
However, according to the New York Times and research from the London-based non-profit organization Center for Countering Digital Hate, hate speech, specifically the number of racial, homophobic, and anti-Semitic insults, has increased.
Musk’s Denial
The research, which utilized the analytical tool Brandwatch, showed that the number of racist insults (particularly against the African American race) increased from an average of 1282 tweets per day to around 3900, while posts against gay men (daily average increased from 2506 to 3946) and transgender individuals (3159 to 5117) rose by more than 60 percent.
The Anti-Defamation League, which published a special report on hate on Twitter, stated that anti-Semitic tweets increased by 40.6 percent and directly blamed Elon Musk and his content moderation policies for this. Accused Elon Musk denied the findings of the mentioned research and declared them completely false. He shared his own research and noted that the department responsible for safety on the social platform would soon present truthful and relevant data to the public.
