Elon Musk has slapped an anti-hate group that labelled X, the company formerly known as Twitter, as “toxic”. While that is true to some measurable extent, the man’s not taking the accusation sitting down and has countered the claim, saying that he is doing this to stop the spread of online hate and disinformation.
The X lawsuit accuses the group, known as The Centre For Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), of illegally raking its servers and cherry-picking the most hateful posts it can find, in order to run a “scare campaign” to drive away any potential advertisers. The group’s report states that Twitter failed to act on 99% of the hateful posts, including those that contained racist, homophobic, neo-Nazi, antisemitic, and conspiracy-laden content in the past month.
I have raked Elon Musk over the coals daily for a year.
But today – that changes.
He will face extreme hell from academic researchers for this.
I respect what he did – because having also faced hell from them for exposing the truth – it’s not an easy thing to do.
They… pic.twitter.com/dHDGpGFmWT
— Kristen Ruby (@sparklingruby) July 31, 2023
“Twitter failed to act despite the fact that the tweets surfaced by the Center clearly violate the platform’s policies against hateful conduct, which bans abuse on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation and gender identity.”
X also claims that the CCDH is being funded by Twitter rivals, as well as foreign governments “in support of an ulterior agenda”. Additionally, it also posted an article, basically defending the platform and the right to freedom of expression. “Free expression is fundamental to a healthy functioning global society – and if it’s taken away, it’s almost impossible to get back. That’s why we will continue to stand up for people’s rights, including over half a billion passionate users who turn to our platform continually.”
Twitter, or X as it is now officially known after the rebranding, is often regarded as the last bastion of freedom of speech and where folks go when they want to pick a fight with the rest of the internet. Truly, it’s a double-edged sword of righteousness and some truths, as well as bigotry and vitriol. Of course, the platform is also known for other things, chief among which being a source pornographic material, typically posted by the AV stars themselves, and at one time, full movies of popular shows, due to a hiccup in one of the platform’s ruling about videos.
