Elon Musk’s free speech utopia of Twitter 2.0 has predictably resulted in a rise in hate speech, according to a new report.
Despite Musk’s own report shown at the Morgan Stanley TMT Conference, which showcased “50% less hate speech than pre-acquisition” on Twitter 2.0, an independent study from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) showed that there has in fact been a rise in anti-Semitic speech.
As reported by The Washington Post: “The study, which used machine-learning tools to identify likely antisemitic tweets, found that the average weekly number of such posts ‘more than doubled after Musk’s acquisition’ – a trend that has held in the months after Musk took over. The analysis found an average of over 6,200 posts per week appearing to contain antisemitic language between June 1 and Oct. 27, the day Musk completed his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. But that figure rose to over 12,700 through early February – a 105 percent increase.”
On the other hand, Musk has been praised for reducing the amount of CSAM material on Twitter 2.0, which appears to be the case, according to Musk’s own findings and charts.
As Social Media Today put it: “Again, on balance, it doesn’t seem possible that Twitter could be improving its performance in these critical areas at the rates that it’s claiming, given reduced resources and funding. But it’s hard to know exactly what is happening, because Elon and Co. are saying one thing, while external analysis suggests that the real outcome is very different.
