In addition to Elon Musk's casually chaotic rein over the bird app since his acquisition of the platform last year, Twitter has recently been dealing with flagging traffic. This issue has only become more accentuated with the recent launch of Threads, Meta's Twitter competitor.
Now, Musk's digital town square is facing another issue: a pending German legal challenge that will decide whether Twitter is contractually obliged to remove antisemitic tweets.
DON'T MISS: Elon Musk Has a Bold Claim About Twitter's Traffic
Researchers at HateAid, a German organization intent on campaigning against online hate, submitted the case to the Berlin District Court in January. The organization reported several anti-semitic tweets to Twitter; despite the tweets violating the platform's Hateful Conduct policy, Twitter did not remove them.
Four of the tweets in question denied the Holocaust outright, while another compared Covid vaccination programs to the Nazi death camps, according to the Guardian. Twitter in January said that three of the tweets did not violate its conduct, and did not respond to the remaining reports.
Twitter was informed of the pending legal action by the Berlin court in June. If they choose to defend the case, a hearing will be set for later this year.
Twitter told HateAid in June that it had blocked the tweets in question, though the Guardian reported that some were only hidden in Germany.
“Twitter has betrayed our trust. By allowing hateful content to spread, the company fails to protect users, and Jews in particular. What starts online, does not end there," Avital Grinberg, the president of the European Union of Jewish Students, a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. "Twitter cultivates real hate and violence, and as such, disregards our democratic values. If Jews are forced out of the virtual space due to antisemitism and digital violence, Jewish life will become invisible in a place that is relevant to society."
Antisemitic hate has been surging recently, with the Anti-Defemation League finding that 2022 had the "highest level of antisemitic activity since ADL started keeping records in 1979."
Twitter is failing to remove antisemitic hate tweets.
— HateAid EU (@HateAidEU) July 10, 2023
With Elon Musk, the platform has become a breeding ground for antisemitism, racism and hatred. That is why we and @EUJS are going to court to hold them accountable. #TwitterTrialhttps://t.co/EktYPH9Gt9
Researchers at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) additionally found in March that there has been a "major and sustained spike in antisemitic posts on Twitter" since Musk's takeover last year. The ISD found more than 300,000 English-language antisemitic tweets between June 2022 and February 2023.
Musk, meanwhile, has said often that he is intent on protecting free speech, telling Bill Maher in May that "free speech is only relevant when it’s someone you don't like saying something you don’t like."
Twitter's own rules disallow content that "denies that mass murder or other mass casualty events took place" -- this case could decide whether it and other social networks need to enforce their own codes of conduct.
"Twitter is failing to remove antisemitic hate tweets," HateAid said. "With Elon Musk, the platform has become a breeding ground for antisemitism, racism and hatred.
