HARASSMENT AND CIVILITY ON TWITTER UNDER MUSK
On Twitter, the conversation was never very polite. The loudest voices have frequently overshadowed softer, more nuanced opinions. After all, whether the dispute is about baseball or transgender children, it is often simpler to lash out at a perceived adversary than to look for areas of agreement.
This isn’t going to change anytime soon, as evidenced by the chaos that has engulfed Twitter, the platform, and Twitter, the company since Elon Musk took over. If it improves, it will probably grow far worse first.
Just over a week ago, Musk and his group of tech industry supporters came to Twitter to destroy the blue bird’s nest and quickly rebuild it in his vision. He promptly dismissed the company’s top executives, and the board of directors appointed him as its only director (for the time being). He also listed himself in his bio as “Chief Twit” and then as “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator.”
To bring the San Francisco-based company’s workforce back to levels not seen since 2014, he started mass layoffs on Friday, emailing out around half of its employees.
He has been tweeting a variety of offensive memes, half-jokes, SpaceX rocket launches, and maybe unfinished plans for Twitter that he appears to be working on in real time throughout this time. For example, in a Twitter debate with author Stephen King, he seemed to swiftly scale back his proposal to charge users $20 a month for the “blue check” and certain other capabilities, writing, “If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.”
“We must find a way to pay the bills! Twitter can’t depend solely on its sponsors. What about $8? Musk answered. In addition to offering some premium features that aren’t yet available, like having their tweets ranked higher than those from accounts without the blue check, the company announced on Saturday that anyone on Twitter can pay a fee for the checkmark “just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow.” The subscription service costs $7.99 per month. When the fee-based verification tag will be accessible is unclear. It takes the place of what was once thought to be a security measure meant to deter fraudulent accounts.
The millionaire CEO of Tesla has frequently contacted right-wing leaders to call for more lenient laws against hate speech and false information. Dimitry Medvedev, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, congratulated him. He also tweeted, then removed, a ludicrous conspiracy theory about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband being attacked in his house.
In an open letter to Twitter’s top 20 advertisers, over three dozen advocacy groups urged them to pledge to stop running ads on the network if Musk’s Twitter compromises “brand safety” and abandons content monitoring.
Extremists are not only gloating about Musk’s takeover of Twitter, but they also see it as a fresh chance to use the most offensive, harassing, and racist words and images possible. The letter stated, “This includes overt threats of violence against those they disagree with.”
Musk fired Vijaya Gadde, the platform’s woman in charge of safety and trust, as one of his first actions. To ensure users and advertisers that Twitter won’t become a “free-for-all hellscape,” as some worry it might, he has retained Yoel Roth, the company’s head of safety and integrity.
“Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains unchanged,” he tweeted on Friday. Contrary to what you may hear in the media, we have occasionally witnessed hate speech this week decrease (asterisk) below (asterisk) our previous averages. Despite this, more and more advertisers are halting their Twitter expenditure as they reconsider how Musk’s modifications might lead to a spike in offensive content on the network.
According to a tweet he sent on November 1, Musk also had a meeting with various civil rights leaders “about how Twitter will continue to combat hate & harassment & enforce its election integrity policies.”
Even though members of the LGBTQ community are much more likely than those outside of such communities to become victims of violent crime, representatives of the LGBTQ community were conspicuously absent from the conference. A request for comment on Musk’s intentions to meet with LGBTQ organizations was not answered by Twitter.
The volatile billionaire has stated that he will establish a “content moderation council” with a range of opinions before making significant judgments regarding the content or restoring blocked accounts, like that of former President Donald Trump. He went on to say that “the civil rights community and groups who face hate-fueled violence” will be part of the council. To address concerns about moderation, experts have noted that Twitter already has a trust and safety advisory committee.
Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Virginia who is a member of the council and has been collaborating with Twitter since its founding in 2009 to address online abuses including harassment and threats, said, “I really can’t imagine how it would differ.” “The full range of opinions on free speech are represented on our council.”
Following a business takeover, layoffs and firings are to be expected, along with some degree of disruption. However, Musk’s ambiguous plans for Twitter, particularly its regulations around hate speech, misinformation, and content moderation, are causing concerns about the direction one of the most well-known information ecosystems in the world is taking. For the time being, at least, it appears that Twitter will follow Elon Musk’s lead.
Eddie Perez, a former team leader for Twitter’s civic ethics who departed the firm before Musk’s takeover, expressed his hope that maturity and responsibility would prevail. Being a wealthy troll on Twitter and trying to make people laugh with memes and yuk it up is one thing. There is a new degree of accountability now that you are the owner of Twitter.
However, the memes seem to be winning for the time being. Experts like Perez are concerned that Musk is acting too quickly, disregarding those who have been trying to make the site more polite, and instead relying on his own solitary experience as one of its most well-known users, with millions of admiring followers applauding his every action.
“You have one billionaire in charge of something as significant as Twitter, a social media site. Additionally, there are entire nations whose political objectives conflict with our own, attempting to sow discord and actively seeking favor with Musk. Perez stated.
“All of that is just not normal in any world,” he continued. “That ought to worry us.”
It wasn’t always a cesspool, Twitter. Additionally, there are still amusing, odd, and nerdy niches on the platform that are relatively shielded from the chaotic and combative environment that might arise from following too many irascible agitators. However, similar to Facebook, Twitter’s ascent was accompanied by a discernible drop in online decorum in the US and abroad as well as increasing division.
According to Lee Rainie, director of internet and technology research at the Pew Research Center, “the big understanding that occurred between 2008 and 2012 is that the way to get traction, the way to get attention on any social media, Twitter included, was to use incendiary language — to challenge the basic humanity of the opposition.”
As the 2016 U.S. presidential election drew near and ended, the situation worsened, and the newly elected president solidified his status as one of Twitter’s most inflammatory users. Following the disclosure that Russia attempted to sway elections in the United States and other nations using social media, the platforms themselves emerged as key players in the political discourse.
Their claims are supported by exclusive academic data as well as user testimonies, which indicate that hate is flourishing under Mr. Musk’s direction, with trolls feeling more confident, harassment escalating, and an increase in accounts that follow abusive and misogynistic profiles.
In what they describe as a chaotic workplace where Mr. Musk is always surrounded by security, current and former employees of the firm tell BBC Panorama that mechanisms designed to shield Twitter users from trolling and harassment are impossible to maintain. Several of the people I’ve spoken to have gone on the record for the first time.
Everyone on her team who developed safety features like nudge buttons has been fired, according to the former head of content design. Later on, she quit. According to Twitter’s study, those safety precautions cut down on trolling by 60%. According to a Twitter developer, “nobody’s taking care” of this kind of work these days, comparing the platform to a building that appears to be in good condition on the surface but is “on fire” inside.
• Concerns about the growing prevalence of child sexual exploitation on Twitter and the underreporting of this issue by law enforcement
According to a recent employee, targeted harassment efforts that try to restrict freedom of expression and foreign influence operations that were previously taken down from Twitter regularly are continuing “undetected”.
• Exclusive data demonstrates that since the takeover, there has been a 69% spike in new accounts following abusive and sexist profiles and that misogynistic online hate targeting me has increased.
• Since the takeover, accounts that appear to have been reinstated or newly formed have grown more active, targeting survivors of sexual assault.
As a reporter who shares my coverage of hate, conspiracy theories, and misinformation on Twitter, I am accustomed to abuse on the platform. However, I saw it gradually decreasing on all social media platforms throughout the most of previous year. Then, in November, I discovered that Twitter had gotten worse once more.
As it happens, I was correct. According to data collected by a team from the University of Sheffield and the International Center for Journalists, which has been monitoring the hate I receive, since Mr. Musk entered office, the amount of hate directed at me on Twitter has more than tripled when compared to the same time last year.
Although they claim to be taking action, all social media platforms have been under pressure to address dangerous content and online hate. Measures that don’t appear to be at the top of Twitter’s list anymore.
I set out to get answers in San Francisco, where Twitter’s headquarters are located. An engineer who writes the computer code that powers Twitter is the ideal source for them. We’re calling him Sam since he wanted us to hide his identity because he’s still employed there.
“For someone on the inside, it’s like a building where all the pieces are on fire,” he said. “The façade appears to be in good shape from the outside, but I can see that nothing is functioning. Everything is broken, including the faucets and plumbing.
He claims that the severe staffing dislocation is to blame for the pandemonium. Since Musk acquired Twitter, at least half of its employees have been let go or have decided to quit. He claims that members of other teams are now required to change their attention.
“A new person, without the expertise, is doing what used to be done by more than 20 people,” states Sam. “That leaves room for much more risk, many more possibilities of things that can go wrong.” He claims that while older features are still there, the people who created and maintained them have moved on, leaving them unattended.
In Conclusion
“There are so many things broken, and there’s nobody taking care of it, that you see this inconsistent behavior,” he says to me. He believes that the degree of chaos is a result of Mr. Musk’s lack of faith in Twitter staff. Before choosing which engineers to fire, he explains that he brought in experts from his other business, the electric vehicle maker Tesla, and asked them to review the engineers’ code over a few days. He tells me it would take “months” to figure out that kind of code.
He feels that the degree of security Mr. Musk surrounds himself with betrays this lack of trust.
“There are always at least two large, towering, Hollywood movie-style security guards with him wherever he goes in the workplace. He informs me, “Even when [he goes] to the restroom.” For him, it’s all about the money for Mr. Musk. He claims that all of the catering and cleaning crews were fired and that Mr. Musk even attempted to sell the office plants to the workers.
