Antisemitic content has flooded Twitter since Elon Musk took control of the social media platform, with antisemitic tweets more than doubling in that roughly five-month period.
The Washington Post reports on a study conducted by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a nonpartisan think tank, and CASM Technology, which used machine learning (backed up by human review) to identify posts fitting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. It’s not that there was no antisemitism on pre-Musk Twitter. The analysis found an average of over 6,200 posts each week between June 1 and Oct. 27 that contained antisemitic language. But between Musk taking the reins and early February, it more than doubled to 12,700 antisemitic tweets per week.
What a surprise. No one could have predicted that Musk reinstating the accounts of neo-Nazis would have the effect of increasing antisemitism on Twitter beyond just what those specific neo-Nazis had to say.
RELATED STORY: Musk follows divide-the-nation-for-profit model, raking in ad revenues via restored far-right trolls
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The new report found that Musk’s takeover of the site ushered in a three-fold increase in “hateful account creation,” i.e., new accounts that were posting at least some antisemitic content right off the bat. But it wasn’t just that—there was a broader increase in antisemitic hate speech. While the new report can’t speak directly to causation, it sure looks like people knew they’d been given permission.
Musk has bragged about a reduction in “hate speech impressions,” meaning the overall number of times tweets containing hate speech were viewed. That’s part of his claimed mission to allow free speech (including hate speech) while stifling its reach. But the new report on antisemitism found “only a very small decrease in the average levels of engagement,” and a researcher at the ISD told the Post that the increased number of antisemitic tweets could account for reduced engagement with any individual one.
“When you have a substantially higher volume of content that is propagating particular narratives, you can't expect all of that content to continue to have the same level of engagement,” he said.
After a few months of watching Musk’s buffoonish leadership of Twitter, it’s hard to say “Elon Musk knows what he’s doing” about anything. As an example, when The Washington Post tried to ask Twitter about this new study showing increased antisemitism on the platform, the company’s response was a poop emoji, part of a new Musk initiative to answer all press inquiries that way. But if he isn’t intentionally and successfully increasing hate speech on Twitter, it’s safe to say he doesn’t care about the outcomes of what he’s doing.
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