For Twitter’s more than 200 million daily active users, it’s been a long and strange week. Elon Musk, billionaire, CEO and Twitter superfan, spent $44 billion on a hotly contested, overpriced and dubious acquisition of his favorite corner of the social network. In addition to firing the more sensible Twitter controller and some of the rest of the staff, what he plans to do precisely with his new toy is murky at best.
With one exception: Among Musk’s many antics and public statements since the acquisition talks began in April, he has consistently cited the removal of content moderation on Twitter as the main explanation for why he is buying.
For those who paint in the social media industry and those who, like me, examine it, what Musk sees as content moderation is notable for its narrowness. It basically focuses on debatable complaints, languages or account holders, ignoring moderation. Paints that eliminate spam and destructive bots. To social media experts, Musk’s disdain for Twitter’s regulations seems naïve, and his preference for near-absolute “free speech” on the online page as a misguided impossibility.
Despite what critics like Musk seem to think, content moderation is a partisan tool of the awakened crowd.
Done right, content moderation requires a broad, interdependent and business-to-business formula of people, policies, and practices. You will have to comply with legal mandates that differ from country to country and can result in costly fines. It deserves to inspire the widest imaginable participation of users and, at the same time, decrease the possibility of harm to users as a result of such participation. And you’ll have to constantly refine the IT tools, automation, and human judgment needed to achieve those goals.
The night before Musk officially took over Twitter, he sang to his 115 million followers, “the bird is free. “It’s as smart as saying I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
Twitter’s moderation criteria have already made a permissive mistake, especially when it comes to its closest peers to the market. For example, unlike many other platforms, Twitter allows users to spread consensual adult sexual content, giving an outlet to other people who enjoy that content while taking seriously anything that crosses a legal line or violates policies opposed to things like gratuitous violence. threats, self-harm and animal abuse or torture.
Vijaya Gadde, a former Twitter lawyer and leading policy officer, has played a major role in building and maintaining its extensive but immobile rules. Attack on the 6th of the United States Capitol.
Musk fired Gadde in his first series of punches.
In total, Twitter’s new chief executive split in two on Friday morning. In a thread he posted, Yoel Roth, the head of content moderation who still posts, tried to reassure skeptics that the site’s “basic” practices were in place. Trusted team
Most of us couldn’t stand what those human moderators see over and over again, each and every day. It’s a sad but universal fact that there are enough other people interested in downloading and spreading these things that a social media company wants to employ a small army of low-paid, low-status staff to deal with it. Twitter’s small army has just shrunk.
Even before the corporate bloodshed, Musk’s Twitter began to show its dark side. Researchers at Montclair State University recorded an “immediate, visual and measurable increase” in hate speech on the site during the first 12 hours since Musk took ownership.
Musk sent an open letter to advertisers in an attempt to allay their concerns about the site’s imaginable degradation of reputation. Twitter, he said, would not sink into a “hellish landscape loose for everyone. “and General Motors, among others, have “suspended” their participation.
Last Thursday, Musk again tried to calm advertisers’ fears. “Elon, excellent verbal exchange yesterday,” seller Lou Paskalis tweeted Friday. have an effect on BRAND SAFETY/FIT. You say you’re committed to moderation, but you just fired 75% of the moderation team!”
Musk did not tweet a correction on this percentage; he simply blocked Paskalis. He also threatened to “name and shame” express brands that had gotten rid of classified ads and blamed “activist” teams for the loss of advertising dollars.
What worries advertisers, users and others?A Twitter where anything goes, where a fickle and arrogant decision maker who doesn’t delight in running a social network questions his enthusiasts about product concepts and changes the barriers of politics and moderation at will.
Musk continues to insist that Twitter’s moderation hasn’t changed. Encore. Il promises to appoint a varied moderation board to update Twitter’s old system. Carpet the next time @kanyewest, for example, use your account to assign “death with 3” to Jews?
A fitting analogy with the new Elonian Twitter is perhaps a car with dubious brakes, accelerating on a road without railings. But that may go unnoticed by Musk; so far he has been unfazed by the spontaneous combustion of Teslas and the problematic programming of the autopilot that, in a series of tests, would not have been able to recognize the shape of a child moving in his path.
Just before Musk’s takeover of Twitter ended, insightful users noticed that he had replaced his profile, calling himself “Chief Twit. “everyone says: Hello Boss.
Sarah T. Roberts is an associate professor of gender studies, information studies and labor studies, and is chair of the faculty of the UCLA Center for Critical Research.
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