Elon Musk recently took to Twitter to announce that there has been a significant decrease in the use of racial slurs and hate speech since he took over the social media platform. He also stated that it is down by one-third from pre-spike levels. That means hate speech on Twitter is at an all-time low.
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Musk took to Twitter to share an infographic showing a significant decrease in hate speech on Twitter. Musk’s graph showed a small spike after the drop. “Hate speech impressions down by 1/3 from pre-spike levels. Congrats to Twitter team!” Musk tweeted.
In subsequent tweets, he added, “I have half a mind to wag my finger at the 1500 accounts that caused the spike, but I shall forebear.”
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“Reducing the max allowed tweets/day to a number below what a speed typist on meth could do was helpful,” Musk said on Twitter.
The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a Princeton-based research group that evaluates social media content to predict emerging threats, reported that the use of the N-word on Twitter increased by nearly 500% in the 12 hours following Musk’s agreement.
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Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity at the time Musk took over, stated that “a small number of accounts post a ton of tweets that include slurs and other derogatory terms.” He also stated that more than 50,000 tweets repeatedly using the derogatory term for an African-American came from just 300 accounts, the majority of which were “inauthentic.” Twitter also maintained that the spike in racial slurs was part of a campaign to malign Musk.
Musk also disclosed that he saw a list of the terms that were used on the platform the most frequently and most offensively during the exercise. It should be noted that Musk’s assertions have not yet been independently verified by a source or organization.
Having said that, his followers believe that hate speech on Twitter has decreased, primarily because left-leaning users have left in droves or stopped engaging on the platform as a result of Musk and his policies.