According to hollywoodreporter.com, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity says that the platform is dealing with a “trolling campaign” of racist abuse after a report found that the use of the N-word jumped on the social media platform less than a day after Elon Musk’s takeover. Twitter’s Yoel Roth explained in a thread on Saturday that Twitter’s policies around hateful conduct on the platform have not changed at all since Musk took over on Friday despite reports of increasing use of slurs and targeted harassment. Stating that, “Hateful conduct has no place here. And we’re taking steps to put a stop to an organized effort to make people think we have.”
Roth confirmed that in the last two days Twitter has had an uptick in hateful conduct from users, however, he contributes what is happening to “a small number of accounts” that have posted “a ton of Tweets that include slurs and other derogatory terms.” He also offered an example where “more than 50,000 Tweets repeatedly” using a specific slur “came from just 300 accounts.” Roth said that almost all of the 300 accounts they identified as using the slurs as “inauthentic” before stating the platform has already taken action to ban those accounts and users involved in the “trolling campaign” and will continue to do so.
Roth went on to clarify that while the platform’s rules “prohibit Hateful Conduct” like targeting users with dehumanizing content, that policy does not mean the social media company has “a list of words that are always banned.” Adding that ” Context matters, for example, our policies are written to protect reclaimed speech.” Questions about Twitter’s safety, and its responses to hateful conduct and the potential reinstatement of previously banned accounts, have all fueled users to leave the platform, including members of the entertainment industry. Some of those names so far include This Is Us executive producer Ken Olin and Bill & Ted star and doc director Alex Winter.
During an April interview, Musk said that it was “really important that people have the reality and the perception that they are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law.” Musk later added that, Twitter’s banning of Donald Trump, a decision it made based on “the risk of further incitement of violence” following the Jan. 6 insurrection, was “morally wrong and flat-out stupid.” Musk recently changed his stance a bit in saying that, “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” in a statement put out last Thursday.
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