The speech was never all that civilian on Twitter.
The speeches were never all that civil on Twitter. The loudest voices often drown out softer, more nuanced sounds. After all, it’s much easier to tweet angrily at perceived enemies than to find common ground, whether the controversy is about transgender children or baseball.
In the chaos that has engulfed the Twitter platform – and the Twitter company – since Elon Musk took over, it’s clear that this isn’t going to change anytime soon. In fact, it’s likely to get much worse before it gets better – if it gets any better.
Musk, with his group of tech industry loyalists, took to Twitter just over a week ago, ready to tear down the blue bird’s nest and rebuild it in his vision at breakneck speed. He quickly fired top executives and the board, made himself the sole director of the company (for now) and called himself the “Director of Twit,” then the “Director of Twit.” operate the Twitter complaint hotline” in his bio.
On Friday, he began mass layoffs from San Francisco-based companies, allowing about half of the company’s workers via email to bring the company down to staffing levels not seen since 2014.
In the meantime, he continued to tweet a mixture of crude memes, half-jokingly, half-truth, SpaceX rocket launch and there may-may not be plans for Twitter he seems to be working on the site in real time. After coming up with the idea of charging users $20 a month for “green checks” and some extras, for example, he seemed to quickly scale it back up in an exchange on Facebook. Twitter with author Stephen King, who posted: “If that were set up, I would go like Enron. ”
“We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. What about 8 dollars? ‘ Musk replied. On Saturday, the company announced a $7.99 monthly subscription service that allows anyone on Twitter to pay for a checkmark “just like celebrities, companies, and politicians that you followed” as well as some premium features – not yet available – like getting their tweets boosted on tweets coming from accounts without the blue check mark.
Billionaire Tesla The CEO has also repeatedly engaged with right-wing figures calling for an easing of restrictions on hate and misinformation. He received congratulations from Dimitry Medvedev, a top associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and tweeted – then deleted – a baseless conspiracy theory about the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had attacked in his house.
More than three dozen advocacy organizations wrote an open letter to Twitter’s top 20 advertisers, urging them to commit to stopping advertising on the platform if Twitter under Musk undermines “brand safety.” ” and content moderation.
“Extremists not only celebrate Musk’s takeover of Twitter, they see it as a new opportunity to post the most abusive, harassing and racist language and images. This includes explicit threats of violence against those with whom they disagree,” the letter read.
One of Musk’s first moves was to fire the woman in charge of reliability and safety at the platform, Vijaya Gadde. However, he still follows Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, and takes steps to reassure users and advertisers that the site won’t turn into a “local scene” free prison for all” that some people fear.
On Friday, he tweeted that “Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains completely unchanged. In fact, we’ve actually seen hate speech at times this week fall (asterisk) below (asterisk) our previous standards, the opposite of what you can read in the press”. However, a growing number of advertisers are pausing spending on Twitter while they reassess how Musk’s changes might increase objectionable content on the platform.
Musk also met with a number of civil rights leaders “about how Twitter will continue to combat hate & harassment & enforce its election integrity policies,” according to a tweet he sent. on November 1st.
But representatives of the LGBTQ community were significantly absent from the meeting, even though its members were more likely to be victims of violent crime than those outside of those communities. Twitter did not respond to a message commenting on whether Musk plans to meet with LGBTQ groups.
The nimble billionaire says he won’t make major decisions about content or reinstate banned accounts – such as those of the former President Donald Trump – before forming a “content moderation committee” with diverse views. Later, he added, the council would include “the civil rights community and groups facing hate violence”. But experts have pointed out that Twitter already has a safe and trusted advisory board to address moderation questions.
“I really can’t imagine how different it would be,” said Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Virginia. Who sits on the board and has worked with Twitter since its inception in 2009 to address online harms, such as threats and stalking. “Our council is full of views on free speech.”
Some chaos is expected after the company takeover, as well as layoffs and layoffs. But Musk’s silent plans for Twitter – particularly his policies of content moderation, misinformation and hate speech – are raising alarms about the location of one of the world’s most powerful ecosystems. The world’s most famous news outlet. All that seems certain is for now, at least, like Elon Musk Go, Twitter too.
“I hope that responsibility and maturity will one day pay off,” said Eddie Perez, the former leader of Twitter’s civic integrity team, who left the company before Musk took over. “Becoming a billionaire troll on Twitter and trying to make fun of memes and yuk it is essential. You are now the owner of Twitter and have a new level of responsibility.”
For now, however, the memes seem to be winning. This concerns experts like Perez, who worry that Musk is moving too fast without listening to the people who have been working to improve politeness on the platform and instead use the savvy experience. his own as one of the most popular users of the platform with millions of raving fans who have praised him. every move.
“You have a single billionaire who controls something as influential as social media platforms like Twitter. And you have entire countries (who have) political goals that don’t align with ours, and they’re trying to create chaos and they’re directly attracting favors” with Musk, Perez said.
“There’s no world where all of that is normal,” he added. “That should totally take care we. ”
Twitter didn’t start out as an experience sharer. And even now there are a lot of funny, weird, nerd subgroups on the platform that are somewhat insulated from the mess and confrontation that it can emerge if one follows too many agitators. impatient. But as with FacebookTwitter’s rise has also coincided with a growing polarization and a measurable decline in online civility in USA and more.
“The big understanding that happened between 2008 and 2012 is that the way to get traction, the way to get attention on any social media, including Twitter, is to use inflammatory language – to challenge the basic humanity of the opposition,” said Lee Rainie, Director, Director of Internet and technology research at the Pew Research Center.
Things continued to evolve as the 2016 US presidential election approached and passed, and the new president cemented his reputation as one of Twitter’s most trusted users. After it was reported that Russia was using social media platforms to try to influence elections in the US and other countries, the platforms themselves became central figures in the debate. political debate.
“Do they have too much power? “Are their content moderation policies privileged to one party or another?” Rainie said. And that is the environment that Elon Musk is entering now.”
And aside from embarrassment and overblown personality, Musk’s own description of his new job – “Twitter complaint hotline operator” – may turn out to be his biggest challenge yet.
