The nest of #Twitter now appears wounded, with a swarm of #trolls spreading across its digital branches following the platform’s acquisition by #Elon #Musk. More than 50,000 #tweets originating from just 300 accounts worldwide have “bombarded” the social media platform with #hatespeech and countless hateful messages.
The company’s head of safety openly described it as “an organised attempt to make people believe that our content moderation policies have been weakened”, following the company’s $44 billion acquisition by the world’s richest man. According to Yoel Roth, the social media platform was experiencing a surge of tweets from a disproportionately small number of accounts, containing offensive and derogatory content.
As an indication of the scale of the attack, he said, more than 50,000 tweets using an unspecified slur were posted by just 300 accounts.
According to Roth, most of these accounts were “inauthentic”, and the users involved were suspended.
“We took action and banned the users involved in this trolling campaign — and we will continue working to address the situation over the coming days to ensure that Twitter remains safe and welcoming for everyone,” he stressed.
https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/1586542285168091136
The acquisition of the social media platform by the multi-billionaire, who has described himself as a “free speech absolutist,” has raised concerns among users about a loosening of content moderation policies and the reinstatement of controversial accounts - including those of former US President Donald Trump and right-wing political commentator Katie Hopkins.
Musk himself has fuelled users’ concerns. After ousting Twitter’s CEO and CFO, he posted on his account that “the bird is freed.” Many interpreted the phrase as a reference to internal changes, while others saw it as a sign that Twitter could lift restrictions on the content posted on the platform - and not without reason, given the billionaire’s previous statements.
