Twitter has seen an "unprecedented" increase in "hate speech" since Elon Musk took over the platform in late October, The New York Times reports. As the paper's fact checkers might say about someone else's scary claims, the Times story is misleading and lacks context. But it highlights the challenges that Musk faces as he tries to implement lighter moderation practices without abandoning all content restrictions.
Before Musk bought Twitter, the Times says, "slurs against Black Americans showed up on the social media service an average of 1,282 times a day. After the billionaire became Twitter's owner, they jumped to 3,876 times a day. Slurs against gay men appeared on Twitter 2,506 times a day on average before Mr. Musk took over. Afterward, their use rose to 3,964 times a day. And antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61 percent in the two weeks after Mr. Musk acquired the site."
