Last month, new Twitter owner Elon Musk said that since he took over, “hate speech impressions” had dropped a lot on the site.
It was a surprising claim, given that Musk has fired hundreds of people and forced them to leave. Musk has also publicly criticized the company’s rules about content moderation and taken away resources that the company needed.
Two watchdog groups conducted research on Friday that showed Musk’s false claim. The research gave one of the clearest pictures of the rising rate of hate speech on the platform.
In reports, both the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Anti-Defamation League said that the amount of hate speech on Twitter had grown a lot while Musk was in charge.
In particular, the Center for Countering Digital Hate said that Musk used the n-word twice as often as the average person in 2022. And the use of slurs against people’s sexuality is up by 58% and 62%, respectively.
In a separate publication, the Anti-Defamation League said that its data shows “both more anti-Jewish content on the platform. And a drop in the number of antisemitic posts that are removed.”
Both groups are worried about what they see on Twitter, which is one of the most critical ways to communicate globally. The Anti-Defamation League said it was “troubling” that things were getting worse. But, it also said, “given the rumored cuts to Twitter’s content moderation staff, it’s likely to get worse.”
Kanye West suspended for hate speech
The news comes just hours after Twitter shut down Kanye West’s account. For posting a changed picture to show a swastika inside a Star of David. He also talked about Hitler on Alex Jones’s show Infowars.
Imrad Ahmed, the head of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said that Musk had “shown every kind of racist, misogynist, and homophobe that Twitter was open for business, and they have acted accordingly.”
Apple is back advertising on Twitter
Elon Musk says that Apple has “fully resumed” putting ads on Twitter. During a Twitter Spaces conversation he was having from his private plane on Saturday night, the billionaire said something.
The New York Times says that Apple suspended advertising on Twitter after the shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs on November 19. The news source says that brands tend to cut back on their ads after shootings and disasters. Mainly because they don’t want their products displayed next to tweets about bad things that happen to people.
Musk said he had talked to Tim Cook two days after he said bad things about Apple. “We cleared up the confusion about Twitter being removed from the App Store,” he wrote.
Read Also: Kanye West loses Twitter account over violent tweet
On Saturday, Zo Schiffer of Platformer reported that Amazon was also planning to start advertising again on Twitter. According to reports, the retail giant has agreed to spend about $100 million annually “pending some security tweaks.”
Apple and Amazon are returning to Twitter, the company’s advertising income has dropped a lot since Musk took over in late October. During the opening week of the World Cup in Qatar, the company earned 20% of it predicted earnings. In addition, the company has repeatedly lowered its projections for the last three months of the year in the past few weeks. At first, Twitter projected earning about $1.4 billion in Q4, but it has cut that number to $1.1 billion. Musk told employees that the company’s finances were in bad shape and that bankruptcy was “not out of the question.”
