Hate speech spirals on X as Musk moderators turn blind eye

Updated on: 15 September 2023

Gintaras Radauskas
Senior journalist

Elon Musk’s rebranded version of Twitter has become much worse at removing hate speech from its platform, a new study finds. Contrary to what the billionaire’s executives are claiming, it seems that the site is now a safe haven for bigots.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said it reported 300 posts on X for expressing extreme hatred to the company after conducting an investigation. The platform left up 259 (86%) of them.

According to the CCDH, the reported posts included texts promoting and glorifying antisemitism, racism against black people, neo-nazism, white supremacy, and other forms of prejudice.

At the end of August, the organization collected a sample of 300 such posts from 100 accounts, and reported them to X moderators via official reporting tools. However, one week later, 259 posts were still up, and 90 of 100 accounts also remained active.

Alongside the unfortunate fact that dozens of advertisements for major brands such as Apple and Disney were appearing next to hate speech, this is a clear sign that X is not actually “a much healthier and safer platform than a year ago,” as the platform’s chief executive Linda Yaccarino claimed to CNBC recently.

In fact, every reported post violated at least one of X’s policies against hateful conduct, CCDH said.

Some of the posts were mocking victims of the Holocaust and glorifying the Nazis and Adolf Hitler. There were also memes accusing black people of being violent by nature and condemning interracial relationships.

Musk doesn’t want to hear any criticism, though. He recently threatened to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League – just because the organization has been claiming that instances of hate speech were rising on X.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1698828606598734225

On July 31st, Musk’s X Corp already filed a lawsuit against CCDH over its reporting of the proliferation of hate and disinformation on the platform under Musk’s leadership. CCDH has said it will fight the lawsuit and keep holding “Twitter’s feet to the fire”.

The CCDH says that for more than two decades, social media companies have hidden behind the legal protections conferred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act 1996 – before social media platforms existed.

This legislation states that these companies cannot be held liable as publishers in any way for the hate, antisemitism, and disinformation that is read and viewed by billions of people.

“It is an intolerable inequality under the law, caused by the US Congress’ stark failure to pass meaningful transparency and accountability legislation for these enormous platforms that privately control, monetize and distort public discourse to suit their commercial agenda,” said Imran Ahmed, founder and chief executive of CCDH. “It is time for Congress to ensure that hate has consequences.”