Hi folks! Kylie Robison, tech reporter filling in for David. This week, I have my eye on some new statistics related to the bird app.
Researchers have found a significant increase in hate speech and violent content on Twitter following Elon Musk's acquisition of the platform last year, according to Bloomberg. Before Musk's ownership, slurs against Black Americans appeared 1,282 times daily, but after his takeover, this number surged to 3,876 times per day, the New York Times reported.
It goes without saying that these findings are kryptonite for advertisers. Twitter depends on advertisers, which likely led to the appointment of Linda Yaccarino, a former NBC ad executive, as its new CEO. Despite her advertising experience, it's unlikely companies like Disney want to place ads next to slurs. Twitter's ad revenue has decreased by half since the company was acquired, according to Musk.
After the publication of Bloomberg’s article, Twitter said it strongly disagrees that the amount of harmful content is rising, stating that 99.99% of tweet impressions involve healthy content, indicating that only a small amount of content requires enforcement. The firm highlighted its progress in reducing the reach of problematic tweets through its "Freedom of Speech, Not Reach" approach, which restricts the reach of problematic tweets (but it’s hard for third parties to know which tweets have been restricted in such a way, Bloomberg reported). The company also emphasized that much of the data cited in the article is outdated and that it has already addressed and improved many issues through automated and manual enforcement.
Yet, there’s a larger picture here. For one, impressions (the number of times a tweet has been seen) are not the same as posts. A former Twitter staffer told me that most hate speech doesn’t get a lot of impressions because it’s “usually the rando user with like 100 followers who is tweeting that crap.” The former staffer, who is familiar with the ins and outs of moderation at Twitter, said that it's also likely that Twitter leadership modified its definition of hate speech for the data it provided.
“I would guess they have removed any hate speech against trans or gay people from being considered hate speech,” the former Twitter staffer said, adding that there are many accounts with a high number of followers and whose tweets get a high number of impressions that should have dropped the “healthy” score that Twitter cites. For instance, the former staffer said transphobic tweets from right-wing commentator Matt Walsh “should have blown up that statistic on their own.”
“They have most likely also excluded videos or images containing hate speech since they are only validating text tweets again for the same reason,” the former Twitter staffer said. For instance, Musk criticized the company’s decision to moderate an anti-trans documentary from conservative news site the Daily Wire called “What is a Woman?”, which violated Twitter’s rules, and has since garnered 187.8 million views.
Obviously, the public could have more context if Musk hadn't eliminated the company’s PR department and the company’s press line didn’t respond to requests with a poop emoji. Moreover, independent researchers face further challenges in verifying Musk's claims as Twitter now charges third parties for API access, which impedes their analysis of tweets. It's worth noting that Musk has lost two Trust & Safety heads since taking over: Yoel Roth, who had to flee his home following Musk's apparent endorsement of a tweet making baseless allegations that Roth was sympathetic to pedophilia; and Ella Irwin, who departed shortly after Musk’s criticism over the company’s decision to moderate the “What is a Woman?” documentary for violating its rules.
I’ve been covering Twitter since the day Musk bought it. I feel like I’ve seen every angle of this saga. What I can say is that we have reached a very interesting crossroads for Musk, who will celebrate the one-year anniversary of his $44 billion baby in October. The social media landscape is starting to fragment with the launch of many Twitter alternatives. Most notably, Meta’s Threads has reached 100 million users, but it’s having a hard time retaining their attention.
Many people are growing weary of the discourse on Twitter, myself included. Whether Twitter acknowledges third-party research is irrelevant; the evidence of user uneasiness lies partly in the willingness of many of them to join the growing number of Twitter alternatives. I don’t see Twitter changing course, but it's not going to die, either.
“My guess is that we may end up with two sites for two different audiences and different content,” a former Twitter executive told Fortune. “Sort of like CNN and Fox News. Some people will be on both and some will pick the one they feel more comfortable with.”
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Kylie Robison
Data Sheet’s daily news section was written and curated by David Meyer.
