Hate speech surged on Twitter after Elon Musk's takeover, new research shows

The usage of hateful connection connected Twitter has accrued substantially since Elon Musk took over, according to caller research.

Mr Musk completed his $44bn acquisition of the societal networking level successful precocious October, promptly laying disconnected roughly fractional of the company's 8,000 workers.

Although the caput of spot and safety, Yoel Roth, said astatine the clip that frontline moderation unit had experienced "the slightest impact", past week - having resigned - helium said Twitter was not safer nether Mr Musk.

On Friday, the US-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released a study looking astatine the summation successful hateful connection connected the platform.

Among its findings:

• Daily usage of the connection "n****r" was up three-fold since Mr Musk's takeover, compared to the mean seen crossed 2022
• Daily usage of "c***s" was up by 33% successful the aforesaid clip period
• Daily usage of "f****t" was up by 58%
• Daily usage of "tr***y" was up by 62%

The quality comes conscionable days aft Mr Musk tweeted his congratulations to the squad astatine Twitter, saying "hate code impressions" were "down by one-third from pre-spike levels".

He besides claimed connected 18 November that Twitter's caller argumentation was "freedom of speech, but not state of reach", adding: "Negative/hate tweets volition beryllium max deboosted and demonetised, truthful nary ads oregon different gross to Twitter.

"You won't find the tweet unless you specifically question it out, which is not antithetic from the remainder of the internet."

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But the CCDH study recovered that mean engagement with tweets containing slurs had besides jumped.

In the 2 weeks earlier Mr Musk's takeover, the mean fig of replies, retweets and likes for tweets utilizing "n****r", "tr***y" oregon "f****t" was 13.3 but aft the takeover, it jumped to 49.5 - an summation of 272%.

As a lawsuit study, the probe looked astatine anti-LGBTQ+ tweets aft the Colorado Springs shooting, wherever 5 radical were killed astatine an LGBTQ nightclub connected 19 November.

They concentrated connected the hateful "grooming" rhetoric, which they said was viewed connected tweets tens of millions of times aft the shooting.

In the 3 months earlier Mr Musk took implicit Twitter, the 10 accounts astir liable for that rhetoric gained 222,709 followers a period betwixt them, taken arsenic an mean crossed the 3 months.

In the period pursuing Musk's takeover, they gained a full of 944,205 followers - an summation of much than 320%.

It is not the archetypal clip concerns person been raised astir however Mr Musk's enactment is changing Twitter.

The rolling backmost of the platform's COVID misinformation policy is expected to springiness much state to anti-vaxxers, portion his announcement of a "general amnesty" volition let a instrumentality of those antecedently banned for violating Twitter rules.

Among them are achromatic supremacists, misogynists, and far-right conspiracy theorists.

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On Friday, Mr Musk appeared to beryllium addressing the CCDH study erstwhile helium tweeted: "Hate code impressions - fig of times a tweet was viewed - proceed to decline, contempt important idiosyncratic growth."

He promised that information would beryllium published weekly, adding: "Freedom of code doesn't mean state of reach.

"Negativity should and volition get little scope than positivity.

"There are astir 500 cardinal tweets per time and billions of impressions, truthful hatred code impressions are little than 0.1% of what's seen connected Twitter."