Elon Musk proves hate speech is DOWN since his $44B takeover

Elon Musk has shared slides from his talk with Twitter workers saying hate speech is down since his $44billion takeover.

The slides, posted to on his Twitter page, show between October 17 and November 13 hate speech impressions are lower.

The CEO also reported new user signups were at an all time high, averaging over two million per day in the past week.

These new figures counter reports early last month which claimed an uptick in the amount of hateful language being tweeted in the wake of Musk taking the helm.

In the week beginning October 31, the first full week under Musk’s ownership, the Center for Countering Digital Hate claimed the use of racist, homophobic, transphobic and anti-Semitic slurs soared significantly after he took over on October 27.

It found 26,228 tweets and retweets mentioning the racist slur n****r, triple that of the 2022 average. 

Elon Musk has shared slides from his talk with Twitter workers saying that hate speech is down since his $44B takeover

The slides posted to Musk’s twitter page show that between October 17 and November 13 hate speech impressions are lower

Musk also reported that new user signups were at an all time high averaging over 2 million per day in the past 7 days

Twitter 2.0 ‘The Everything App’ was teased in the post, boasting advertising as entertainment, encrypted messaging, video, the relaunch of Blue verified and new payment options

These new figures, counter reports early last month which claimed an uptick in the amount of hateful language being tweeted in the wake of Musk taking the helm

33,926 tweets and retweets mentioned the slur t****y, up 53 percent on the 2022 average.

The slur f****t was up 39 percent with 21,903 tweets and retweets, while 2,598 tweets and retweets mentioning the slur k**e, up 23 percent on the 2022 average. 

1,256 tweets and retweets mentioning the slur w*g, up 62 percent, while 935 tweets and retweets mentioning the slur s**c, up 67 percent on the 2022 average.

The center said that the figures show that despite claims from Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, that the platform had succeeded in reducing the number of times hate speech was being seen on Twitter’s search and trending page, the actual volume of hateful tweets had in fact spiked.

This has been countered in the slides from Musk’s ‘Twitter company talk’ in which the business magnate also teased a new payment feature. 

On Thursday AP reported that the European Union released data which suggested Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it in 2022 compared with the previous year.

EU figures were published as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms’ compliance with the 27-nation bloc’s code of conduct on disinformation.

Twitter wasn’t alone, most other tech companies signed up to the voluntary code also scored worse. 

But the figures could foreshadow trouble for Twitter in complying with the EU’s tough new online rules after owner Musk fired many of the platform’s 7,500 full-time workers and an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial tasks.

The EU report, carried out over six weeks in the spring, found Twitter assessed just over half of the notifications it received about illegal hate speech within 24 hours, down from 82 percent in 2021.

In comparison, the amount of flagged material Facebook reviewed within 24 hours fell to 64 percent, Instagram slipped to 56.9 percent and YouTube dipped to 83.3 percent while TikTok, came in at 92 percent, the only company to improve.

The amount of hate speech Twitter removed after it was flagged up slipped to 45.4 percent from 49.8 percent the year before. 

TikTok’s removal rate fell by a quarter to 60 percent, while Facebook and Instagram only saw minor declines. Only YouTube’s takedown rate increased, surging to 90 percent.

Musk posted an image on Twitter last week with a handful of the around 2,500 employees that remain at the company

 Twitter has seen racial slurs increase since Musk took the helm and controversial accounts reinstated such as former US President Donald Trump

Activists have warned that if advertisers don’t boycott the platform unless their demands for a ‘safer’ site are met, they will expose them

Musk maintains that user numbers remain at an all time high, earlier this week he tweeted that the site had added 1.6M daily active users

Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last month fanned widespread concern that purveyors of lies and misinformation would be allowed to flourish on the site. 

The ban lifted on former U.S. President Donald Trump’s twitter, along with the Twitter Blue fiasco that allowed anyone to be verified, has seen Musk in firing line.

But Musk maintains that user numbers remain at an all time high, tweeting on Saturday that user sign up was at an all time high. 

Many Twitter users have looked to find an alternative platform because they believe Musk’s platform will soon disappear from the emerging controversies.

Meanwhile, a coalition of 60+ civil rights and civil society groups have been putting pressure on brands advertising on the social media platform to boycott.

The ‘Stop Toxic Twitter coalition’ took action after Twitter owner Elon Musk lifted the suspension of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s account, which was banned after the January 6th U.S. Capitol attack.

On the group’s website, the group has called on all of Twitter’s top advertisers to ‘cease’ their affiliation if he ‘undermines brand safety and community standards.’

‘Musk must not roll back the basic moderation practices Twitter already has on the books and he must invest the resources necessary to enforce those rules,’ it reads.

‘This means that Musk should prioritize making the platform safer, focus on ushering in an era where the company has stronger policies to protect users against hate, harassment, and toxicity.

‘But he’s doing the exact opposite.’

Musk recently complained that pressure from the activists had already caused a ‘massive drop in revenue.’

Some 90 percent of Twitter’s revenue comes from ads sales.

The coalition has obtained a list of 100 advertisers by total spending this year and said that only 51 advertisers had paused spending.

Earlier, Musk said he would not make major decisions about the content or restoring banned accounts before setting up a council with diverse viewpoints.

However, accounts have started being reinstated before the official announcement of the creation or existence of such a council.

Neither Twitter nor Musk has announced the existence of such a council, the initial announcement of which appeared designed to calm concerns over the growing prevalence of misinformation and hate speech on the platform.  

Since taking control of Twitter, Musk has now laid off around 50 percent of the original 7,500 employees and accepted resignations from 1,200 more.

When Musk gave Twitter employees an ultimatum last week in which they could either stay and subscribe to his ‘hardcore’ vision for the company or leave, many more in technical roles opted to leave than expected, Bloomberg reported.

A larger proportion of employees in sales and partnerships positions remained.