The New York Times reported an unprecedented increase in hate speech on Twitter since Elon Musk bought the social media platform. Musk fired everyone in the department responsible for moderating the content of tweets and seems now to be making personal decisions about who should be allowed to return to Twitter and who should be removed. In the past day, he suspended Kanye West (Ye) for posting Star of David with a swastika in its center. West was recently interviewed by Alex Jones, where he said that Hitler was “good” and should be remembered for the many positive things he did.
The Times wrote:
Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, 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.
These findings — from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups that study online platforms — provide the most comprehensive picture to date of how conversations on Twitter have changed since Mr. Musk completed his $44 billion deal for the company in late October. While the numbers are relatively small, researchers said the increases were atypically high.
The shift in speech is just the tip of a set of changes on the service under Mr. Musk. Accounts that Twitter used to regularly remove — such as those that identify as part of the Islamic State, which were banned after the U.S. government classified ISIS as a terror group — have come roaring back. Accounts associated with QAnon, a vast far-right conspiracy theory, have paid for and received verified status on Twitter, giving them a sheen of legitimacy.
These changes are alarming, researchers said, adding that they had never seen such a sharp increase in hate speech, problematic content and formerly banned accounts in such a short period on a mainstream social media platform….
Last week, Mr. Musk proposed a widespread amnesty for accounts that Twitter’s previous leadership had suspended. And on Tuesday, he ended enforcement of a policy against Covid misinformation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
WOW…BUT…Not a surprise.
For a sense of scale, there are about 500 million tweets per day.
FLERP,
Twitter used to have content moderation. Now it seems only Musk makes decisions. The decision to restore COVID misinformation is dangerous. People may die if they listen to quacks. Why is that unimportant?
It’s an extremely small number of tweets. Frankly it’s magnitudes fewer than I expected. 4k out of 500 million!
Don’t get me wrong, Twitter is garbage and a malignant force. But that’s always been true. I don’t think it’s significantly worse now than it’s ever been.
So you think it’s okay to post COVID misinformation?
Racist images?
Anti-Semitic images?
Pornographic images?
Do you draw a line anywhere?
FLERP
How long does one wait for cancer to spread before beginning treatments?
How many rodents are “ok” before you call the exterminator?
The number of threats to schools is miniscule compared to the number of schools and students. How long should we wait to require and implement internet filters and security protocols and hardware?
Not saying it’s “OK.” Just saying the problem does not seem to be on a scale that is worth panicking over. We’re talking about 4,000 out of 500 million daily tweets. That is insanely low. There are enough things to hyperventilate about in the world without making up new things.
The issue isn’t just how many harmful tweets are posted, it’s how many people read them. Many of those 4,000 tweets may be seen by hundreds or thousands of followers. It can grow beyond insignificant very quickly.
Folks seeking an alternative might take a look at Mastodon and the Fediverse …
https://fedi.tips/
Cheers Chers,
Jon https://mathstodon.xyz/@Inquiry
I hate Twitter.
Is that considered hate speech on Twitter?
The more time Elon spends monitoring Twitter and tweeting sweet nothings, the less time he will have for screwing up stuff that actually means something.
And the more his wealth will keep dropping like a rock out a window and the less money he will have for screwing up stuff that actually means something.
Both positives.
TRUE. Thanks for your comment, SomeDAM Poet.
Musk gives me the creeps. It’s even hard for me to look at those pictures of him in the news.
I agree.
Musk is just a freak of nature who fancies himself not only the technical savior of humanity but also a comedian (when the reality is that he is about as funny as the sinking Titanic.)
But at least he’s not mucking up education the way Gates has.
Thank the Lard Elon spends all his time on rockets, cars,boring holes in the ground and now Twitter.
The only thing he is doing that is of concern is Neurallink (boring holes in people’s heads to insert chips)
I take that back.
I got run off the road by a Tesla about six months ago.
Not sure if it was “self driving”, but self driving teslas also concern me. But since I don’t live anywhere near a rocket launch pad, the rockets don’t concern me.
A cartoonist captured Musk. The twitter bird symbol is on the ground, appearing dead. Musk pokes it with a stick, trying to rouse it, while he says, “make money.”
It would be even funnier if it had just been run over by a Tesla
Or hit by one of his rockets.
I’d like to see one of Elon’s rockets fired at Twitter headquarters — after everyone had been evacuated, of course.
All two people who are left.
They could call Twitter after it was hit by a rocket “Tatter” or maybe “Tater”
I like Tater
Run over by a Tesla- funny. Does your comment assume a Tesla is a reliable car?
Linda
I certainly don’t assume Teslas or their drivers are reliable.
In fact, I was run off the road by a Tesla earlier this year on a drive leading into a Lowes parking lot. It was a two lane drive but there was no lane center line and the Tesla was driving right down the middle of the road. I had to pull way off to the side to avoid a collision.
I have no idea if the car was driving itself or whether the driver was simply texting or something, but I know it was dangerous either way.
And there is also this
https://dawnproject.com/dawn-project-safety-test-tesla-full-self-driving-runs-down-child-mannequin-in-school-crosswalk/
Most people have no clue that they are driving on the roads with cars whose operating software has not had to undergo any independent (from Tesla) verification
Here’s a test that Dawn Project did just recently where a Tesla operating in Full Self Driving Mode ran over a dummy child in a stroller
https://dawnproject.com/safety-tests-reveal-that-tesla-full-self-driving-software-will-repeatedly-hit-a-child-mannequin-in-a-stroller/
Musk should really quit all the Twitter nonsense and start addressing issues that are far more serious.
It’s actually funny in a macabre way
During the tests in which the car operating in Full Self Driving Mode hit the stroller, the only error message shown on the Tesla’s display read “Supercharging Unavailable: Add a payment method to your Tesla account”.
So we know where Tesla’s main concern lies.
What is most amazing if all is that Musk has actually convinced some tens of thousands of Tesla owners to pay him $10,000 each to run and test the FSD software (basically risking their own lives and the lives of everyone around them in the process).
If one of these “test drivers” runs over a kid, what do you think the chance is that Elon Musk is going to pay for their lawyer?
I’d say zilch.
These folks are just complete idiots.
I mean seriously. If a trillion dollar company wants you to risk your life to test their software, you certainly should not do it for free to say nothing of pay the company $10k.
And make no mistake, Tesla has legally covered their ass so that they will not be liable by requiring that the car operating in FSD mode must be monitored at all times by the driver.
So anyone killing someone in an accident while operating in FSD mode will be on their own in court.
Here’s a talk by Dan O’Dowd, the fellow who started the Dawn project to test Tesla’s Full self driving feature.
O’Dowd is a graduate of Caltech and has written the operating systems for many safety critical systems like the B1 bomber and other military aircraft.
He’s not simply some guy looking for attention.
He knows far more about safe and secure software development than Elon Musk will ever know. Musk is not even on the same planet or even in the same solar system.
O’Dowd says Tesla’s operating with full self driving mode FSD should be taken off the highways IMMEDIATely
Incidentally, I’ve done enough software development to recognize that what O’Dowd says makes sense .
In fact, I’ve seen the “innards” of a lot of the truly horrendous (buggy, insecure, unsafe) software that O’Dowd talks about and know that the approach that many if not most companies take to software development is truly bad and scary when it is used to control things like cars and p!anes.
Most people are comp!etely oblivious about just how dangerous some of the stuff is and are under the impression that “the engineers who designed and built the control software for trains, planes and automobiles must have known what they were doing”
Let me assure you as someone who has seen this stuff from the inside: that is a very bad assumption.
One of the most dangerous aspects of the Tesla FSD software is that it is running a “neural net” which means it is virtually impossible to know how the software actually works.
Precisely how it makes the “decisions” it does to drive the car is not only unknown but effectively unknowable. There is no source code to be inspected and traditional “logic” that can be verified. If there is method to the madness, it is not something that is amenable to human inspection and understanding.
And because the neural net “learns” how to perform in given circumstances from the data set used to train it, when it encounters circumstances that are outside the training data set, all bets are off. It can — and undoubtedly will — do very unpredictable things. Computer “scientists” call the circumstances outside the training data set “edge cases” but that is actually a highly misleading name because edge case implies they are still within the bounds of the data. But they are not. They are completely outside the training data, so who the hell knows how the system will respond?
While unpredictable is fine for software playing chess (and can work spectacularly well, beating the best human players), it’s not fine for software controlling several thousand pounds of steel moving at 65+ mph on the road with other vehicles also moving at high speed.
But despite the fact that people are driving on the roads with cars that could kill them, for some odd reason, the public are far more concerned with what Elon is doing with and on Twitter than what he doing with his cars.
If that is not the definition of insanity, I don’t know what is.
I am convinced that Twitter actually makes otherwise intelligent people dumb.
Without detracting from the importance of vehicle software design safety, management of major social media platforms is also a major consideration for our society. It’s led directly to the huge political rift we’ve seen develop over the past several years, as well as circulated dangerous misinformation that has literally cost many more lives, as well as impacting the quality of life of many more. For instance, when I attend my local synagogue, where I used to just stroll in casually, I now have to pass through sophisticated security scanners while any bag I’m carrying is examined; similar procedures are now typical at most large office buildings — and it’s not overkill; there’s a good reason for it.
There have always been conspiracy theories & hateful extremism. Not too long ago, that sort of fringe views were typically circulated on manually photocopied newsletters by an isolated individual operating out of a basement, sent to a mailing list of perhaps 35-200, & that was as far as it went. Today, those same individuals, or their ideological heirs, reach millions with less effort than it takes to stuff envelopes.
Just because it doesn’t have a direct effect on physical well-being doesn’t mean it’s trivial.
Thanks for the Tesla info. I’d read enough surface level info. prior to this thread to know to be skeptical.
There’s a video on-line (set in an Eastern European country) that shows a man blowing up his Tesla in frustration (and, anger).
It’s not the cars that are the problem. From what I know, the cars work very well with humans driving them.
It’s the “self driving” software controlling them that is the issue.
I actually find it very bizarre that people pay a lot of money for what is essentially a sports car and then want it to drive itself.
Why?
I have never owned a sports car but I have driven a Jaguar and found the experience very enjoyable.
Why someone would NOT want to drive their sports car — especially one with the luxury and pickup of a Tesla — is a total mystery.
I could understand it if people were buying the cars to operate as robotaxis to make money for them, but Teslas are nowhere near that stage (Elon’s claims notwithstanding)
Nor is the Tesla “driver assist” software the problem. That Tesla calls it “autopilot” is misleading, but the software itself apparently works pretty well, from what I have gathered. It’s essentially a system that helps the driver but does not take over.
Consumer Reports ratings
An easy, effective solution would be for people just to leave Twitter if they don’t like it. There are much better alternatives.
But people would rather complain because secretly they enjoy the controversy. And they love the fact that there is such a huge audience for their controversy.
After all, more than anything else that’s what Twitter has always been about : controversy.
It’s like a gigantic shouting match.
And for anyone who actually believes anything they say is going to make Elon Musk change his policies, I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell.
I rid myself of my Facebook account, which was the only social media platform I used, and life has become immeasurably better. You know those “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books? Social media is Dog[crap] for the Soul. It has transmogrified us and our lives into spectacles for consumption like some cliché sideshow freaks. Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon having nothing on us!
Traitor Trump and Evil Elon are similar in several ways:
Brusk Musk and Traitor Trump are both malignant narcisists.
Evil Elon and Traitor Trump are both media whores – they seem willing to say and/or do anything to attract that spotlight.
Brusk Musk and Traitor Trump are both misogynists – they are addicted to seducing women even if it means cheating. I’ve read the Evil Musk even seduced his best friend’s wife.
Evil Elon and Traitor Trump are both micromanagers.
Brusk Musk and Traitor Trump are both bullies and trolls.
I’m sure there’s more I could add to this list.
Following up on FLERP’s post above and why this trend matters.
We’ve gone from “Things one says at the dinner table but never in public” and white supremacists hiding behind sheets.
Now these same haters are proud to go and be public! Their hate speech is a fixture at rallies supporting a former president of the United States and it is not shut down.
Read that again (FLERP) please. Hate speech and violence spreads with the click of computer key. And Leaders say nothing.
The most compelling testimony is the “everyman” (proud boy) who explained he was addicted to fox news and numerous hate filled websites. He said specifically, “The President told us to attend” and “When the president (finally) told us to leave” we did.
He elaborated on that addiction. This everyman, this person who reads those tweets and becomes more addicted as the quantity grows exponentially, went to a lynching in Washington. They all went to Washington for a lynching and not one Atticus told them to go home.
Somehow he got treatment, a smack of reality – and had the courage to go back to Washington to testify so all could hear just how normalized and simple spread of hate occurs.
IT’S AN ADDICTION THAT IS NOW VALIDATED AND PUBLIC.
Addiction to selective hate. Fight it at every local board meeting, local rally, letter to the editor, petition, campaign – whatever it takes to counter it AND force the policy makers who say NOTHING to SPEAK UP when their card carrying party members stand side by side with racists.
Hateful speech on Twitter is a bad thing. If you see it, you should report it.
At the same time, if we are to trust the numbers in this NYTimes story, there does not seem to be an epidemic of hate speech on Twitter. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t report hate speech when you see it. But it does mean you probably should take reports like this Times story with a grain of salt and try not to let it upset you too much.
What should be done about hate speech, and who should be doing it (i.e. the government or private entities that control the platforms) are complicated questions that involve weighing specific legal concerns and more general tradeoffs between the value of open discourse and censorship. Those questions are a lot more complicated than could be done justice in this space. Two years ago the right was losing their minds over what they considered censorship by Twitter, and the response on the left was “too bad, Twitter is a private entity and can make its own decisions.” Now the left is freaking out because Elon Musk is running Twitter, and the response on the right is, “too bad, Twitter is a private entity and can make its own decisions.” Musk may run Twitter into the ground and that would be fine with me. But it will take more than a marginal increase in a surprisingly low number of hateful tweets to make me worry that Twitter has taken a new and terrifying turn. To me it seems like the same it’s always been: amusing for some purposes, but overall a cesspool of fanatics hyperventilating and preaching to their own choirs.
censoring hate speech and pornographic images of children is very different than censoring opinions of people with whom one disagrees.
Taking a public position that certain things are unacceptable is what has made our democracy last.
Taking a public position that ALL things are acceptable in the name of “freedom of speech” has never been part of democracy.
There are arguments to be made that some things that were once considered pornographic are now okay, but never child pornography. And there are arguments that some unpopular political views are hate speech, but I think we all know hate speech when we see it.
What I find too often in the right are disingenuous folks who intentionally equate CRITICISM of hate speech as being the same as hate speech, but they only do that when that criticism is directed at right wing hate speech they want to normalize or minimize.
Criticism isn’t demagoguery. And demagoguery isn’t “free speech”.
Maybe Father Coughlin should have been allowed to keep spewing lies about how Kristallnacht was a justified response to the evil Jews did to Christians, or other folks should be allowed to say that annihilating civilians towns in Ukraine is a justified response to those evil Ukraine Nazis murdering Russians, but at some point, ethical people understand that legitimizing lies and empowering liars is the way to authoritarianism, as we have seen in too many countries.
There is a reasonable discussion to be had about many issues, but when folks are empowered to have them without any regard to what is true, democracy can’t hold.
“Kanye West, Elon Musk, Donald Trump and the mainstreaming of Nazism,”
by Jeet Heer, posted today at The Nation.
Trump has his supporters. One of them was a senior advisor in education during Bush’s administration who was interviewed for a 10-15-2020 article in the, Jewish News of Northern Calf. He’s one of the authors of a chapter within a 2022 Heritage Foundation report titled, “How CRT undermines academic excellence and individual agency in education” (the report was edited by two of the people identified in the recent Josh Cowen post). The guy was quoted as saying he would “support Trump without hesitation…Trump shows a healthy American instinct. This is what Americans are supposed to stand for.” The person quoted is Polish born, Ze’ve Wurman.
Maybe with Trump, it’s simply a numbers game. The Black voting bloc is larger than the Jewish voting bloc.
The Times wrote:
Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, 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.”
Are people at the NY Times actually paid to keep track of this stuff?
What is their title?
Twitter Tracker?
I guess that would be Twitter Twacker
“I tawt I taw a Twitter Twacker”
Tweety tweeted on Twitter
The Times also wrote:
These findings — from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups that study online platforms…
Well the Times still pays people to write articles about it.
Well, somebody’s gotta write! Do you wanna take up the mantle? Surely you don’t expect me to do it!😀
Robert Maranto at the University of Arkansas (education dept.), formerly at Villa Nova, wrote a chapter in the Heritage Foundation book referenced in my comment at 4:34. The chapter’s title is, “The problem with CRT and the 1619 project – and what to do about them.”
Years before, at AL.com (Alabama), Maranto wrote a “viewpoint” that was posted, “Is same sex marriage a crusade for rights or a war on faith?”
Maranto’s concluding remark was, “Many Democrats reflexively oppose…respect for religion. People of faith might ask: if you dis us, why should we vote for you?”
Sometimes it’s good to see ourselves through the eyes of others to understand why the intense views of a small minority can matter in a nation of more than 330 million.
Truly an insightful film for all of us. It shows Gen.Flynn and quotes Steve Bannon, both Catholic, and yet, the religious right is portrayed in the video as protestant. Both those in the video and the film’s producers manage to place Catholics in the opposite camp from the Christian nationalist movement.
The takeaway from the film is that evangelicals (protestants) are right wing. Evidently, nobody got the memo that the SCOTUS decisions were delivered by conservative Catholics and that the efforts of the state Catholic Conferences predated the politicking by evangelicals. And, with the Federalist Society, led by Leonard Leo, the Catholic Church is far more effective at changing government policy and law from majority rule to right wing bigotry.
Catholic PR should be awarded the highest recognition in the industry.
Interesting that major right wing court decisions resulted from cases involving religious groups like Little Sisters of the Poor and St. James Catholic school (Biel)
Studies show religion is among the top, if not at the top, in voting decisions. Statistically, among voters, I don’t know the ratio who are right wing religious, conservative Catholic, Mormon, Protestant, etc. Equally instructive, may be the number of voters who want man over woman, straight over gay, right wing Christian over all others, White over Black and right wing, religion-defined/justified social and economic Darwinism. They likely add up to a substantial proportion of voters.
In some places (Utah for example) , religion all but determines how people vote.
Not always but a large fraction of the time.
It’s a tribal phenomenon. Just like political parties, actually.
People mindlessly vote with their tribe.
That’s why our country is in the mess it is in.
Tribalism will be the ultimate death of the human species. It is behind “nationalism”, “racism”, “fascism” and most (if not all) of war.
And Twitter is the battlefield of the tribes.
Bari Weiss can’t say that the handwriting wasn’t on the wall.
Her last name is German for White.
How apt is that?