Twitter, immediately after the acquisition, hate posts surge. Musk to set up a "moderation council with broad and diverse perspectives"
Elon Musk, who has completed the acquisition of Twitter and assumed the position of executive director, is wondering what will happen to the handling of account freezes that he has often mentioned so far.
However, Musk tweeted on Friday that he would "not make any major content decisions or reinstate accounts until the council convenes." The council is said to be made up of members with "broad and diverse perspectives". A few hours later, Musk added, lest he is misunderstood, "We haven't touched Twitter's content moderation policy yet."
To be super clear, we have not yet made any changes to Twitter’s content moderation policies https://t.co/k4guTsXOIu
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2022
Musk said one of his reasons for buying Twitter was to restore 'freedom of speech to the platform and consider reviving controversial accounts like former President Trump, who was banned for life. However, instead of exercising force for that purpose, it seems that the policy is to set up a council and entrust the decisions to their hands.
That said, we don't know how many people the Council will consist of, what powers they will have, or what perspectives they will focus on. I don't know how to separate the existing moderation team and policy development team, but since Mr. Vijaya Gadde, who led them, has already been fired, Mr. Musk is now. It's hard to imagine continuing the same way.
It seems that some users are convinced that it is okay to say anything now that Mr. Musk has Twitter. The nonprofit Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) has already seen a surge in "racist slurs" hours after the deal was reportedly closed.
Evidence suggests that bad actors are trying to test the limits on @Twitter. Several posts on 4chan encourage users to amplify derogatory slurs.
— Network Contagion Research Institute (@ncri_io) October 28, 2022
For example, over the last 12 hours, the use of the n-word has increased nearly 500% from the previous average. pic.twitter.com/mEqziaWuMF
The NCRI has found several posts on the message board site 4chan encouraging the posting of racist slurs on Twitter, and some users have been organized to incite racist remarks. I pointed out that it seems
Encouraging hateful speech like this stretches Mr. Musk's "freedom of speech" to mean "whatever you say without being held accountable," which Twitter has struggled to address. It seems that there is a possibility that it will overturn the peace and security of the platform.
We may need to take a moment to think about why Twitter and other social networks have had to tighten up their moderation and policies. The moderation council convened by Mr. Mask is likely to change the direction of Twitter in the future, depending on whether it has an independent third-party perspective or emphasizes Mr. Mask or someone's intentions.