NBC:
A drastic rise in hate speech on Twitter happened just hours after it was officially acquired by billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
“The immediate increase appears to be around 500%,” said Dr. Bond Benton about the percentage increase in hate speech in the first hours of Musk taking over.
Benton is a professor at Montclair University in New Jersey and recently co-authored a white paper claiming that in the first 12 hours of Musk taking over as CEO of the company, in which he tweeted “Free the bird,” a range of hate speech terms skyrocketed on the site.
Benton did not specify the terms, only saying they were vulgar and hostile towards race, religion, and ethnicity.
Musk tweeted there’s been no changes to Twitter’s moderation policies and that he’s forming a “moderation council” with differing viewpoints.
A drastic rise in hate speech on Twitter happened just hours after it was officially acquired by billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
“The immediate increase appears to be around 500%,” said Dr. Bond Benton about the percentage increase in hate speech in the first hours of Musk taking over.
Benton is a professor at Montclair University in New Jersey and recently co-authored a white paper claiming that in the first 12 hours of Musk taking over as CEO of the company, in which he tweeted “Free the bird,” a range of hate speech terms skyrocketed on the site.
Benton did not specify the terms, only saying they were vulgar and hostile towards race, religion, and ethnicity.
Musk tweeted there’s been no changes to Twitter’s moderation policies and that he’s forming a “moderation council” with differing viewpoints.