Discourse was never so civil on Twitter. Louder voices are often drowned out in softer, more nuanced visuals. After all, it’s much easier to get angry with a perceived enemy than to seek common ground, whether the debate is about transgender children or baseball.
In the chaos that has engulfed the Twitter platform — and Twitter the company — since Elon Musk took over, it’s become 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 better at all.
Musk, with his band of tech industry loyalists, arrived on Twitter just over a week ago ready to tear down the bluebird’s nest and rebuild it into his vision at breakneck speed. He quickly fired top executives and the board of directors, installed himself as the company’s sole director (for now), and declared himself “Chief Twit,” then “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” in his bio.
On Friday, he began mass layoffs at the San Francisco-based company, letting go about half of its workers via email to return it to staffing levels not seen since 2014.
All the while, he’s continued to tweet a mix of crude memes, half-jokes, SpaceX rocket launches, and maybe-not plans for Twitter, which he seems to be working on on the site in real time. After floating the idea of charging users $20 a month for the “blue check” and some extra features, for example, he appeared to quickly tone it down in a Twitter exchange with author Stephen King, who tweeted: “If this , I I ran like Enron.
“We have to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?” Musk replied. On Saturday, the company announced a subscription service for $7.99 a month that allows anyone on Twitter to pay a fee to tag “just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow,” as well as some premium features — not yet available — like boosted tweets theirs over those coming from non-blue checking accounts.
The billionaire CEO of Tesla has also engaged repeatedly with right-wing figures calling for looser restrictions on hate speech and misinformation, receiving congratulations from Dmitry Medvedeva top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin and posted — then deleted — a baseless conspiracy theory about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband being attacked at his home.
More than three dozen advocacy organizations wrote an open letter to Twitter’s top 20 advertisers, calling on them to commit to stopping ads on the platform if Twitter under Musk undermines “brand safety” and promotes content moderation.
“Not only are extremists celebrating Musk’s takeover of Twitter, they are seeing it as a new opportunity to post the most abusive, harassing and racist language and imagery. This includes clear threats of violence against people with whom they disagree,” the letter states.
One of Musk’s first moves was to fire the woman responsible for trust and security on the platform, Vijaya Gadde. But he has stood by Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of security and integrity, and has taken steps to reassure users and advertisers that the site won’t turn into the “free-for-all hellscape” that some fear it could. happen
On Friday, he tweeted that “Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged. In fact, we’ve actually seen hate speech on several occasions this week drop (asterisk) below (asterisk) our previous norms, contrary to what you might read in the press.” A growing number of advertisers however, it is halting spending on Twitter while it reevaluates how Musk’s changes could increase objectionable material on the platform.
Musk also met with several civil rights leaders “About how Twitter will continue to fight hate and harassment and enforce its election integrity policies,” according to a post he sent on Nov. 1.
But representatives of the LGBTQ community were conspicuously absent from the meeting, even though its members are far more likely to be victims of violent crime. than those outside such communities. Twitter did not respond to a message for comment on whether Musk plans to meet with LGBTQ groups.
The billionaire has said he will not make major decisions about content or the reinstatement of banned accounts — such as that of former President Donald Trump — before creating a “content moderation council” with diverse perspectives. The council, he later added, would include “the civil rights community and groups dealing with hate-fueled violence.” But experts have pointed out that Twitter already has a trust and safety advisory council to address moderation issues.
“I really can’t imagine how it would change,” Danielle Citron said. a University of Virginia law professor who is a board member and has worked with Twitter since its inception in 2009 to address online harm, such as threats and stalking. “Our council has the full spectrum of views on free speech.”
Some chaos is expected after a corporate takeover, such as layoffs and layoffs. But Musk’s murky plans for Twitter — particularly his policies on content moderation, misinformation and hate speech — are raising alarm about where one of the world’s most high-profile information ecosystems is headed. All that seems certain is that for now, at least, as Elon Musk goes, so goes Twitter.
“I hope responsibility and maturity will win the day,” said Eddie Perez, a former head of Twitter’s civic integrity team who left the company before Musk took over. “It’s one thing to be a billionaire troll on Twitter and try to get laughs out of memes and do it. Now you’re the owner of Twitter and there’s a new level of responsibility.”
For now, though, memes seem to be winning. That concerns experts like Perez, who worry that Musk is moving too fast without listening to the people who have worked to improve civility on the platform and instead using his insular experience as one of the platform’s most popular users. , with millions of fans cheering him on. every move.
“You have a single billionaire controlling something as influential as a social media platform like Twitter. And you have entire nation states (whose political goals are hostile to ours, and they’re trying to create chaos, and they’re directly currying favor with Musk, Perez said.
“There is no world in which all this is normal,” he added. “That should absolutely concern us.”
Twitter didn’t start as a pit. And even now there are pockets of funny, weird and edgy subsets of the platform that remain somewhat isolated from the messy and confrontational place it can look like one is chasing too many stubborn agitators. But as with Facebook, Twitter’s rise also coincided with growing polarization and a measurable decline in online civility in the United States and beyond.
“The big understanding that happened between 2008 and 2012 is that the way to get attention, the way to get attention on any social media, including Twitter, was to use inflammatory language — to challenge the basic humanity of the opposition,” Lee Rainie said. , director of Internet and technology research at the Pew Research Center.
Things continued to change as the 2016 US presidential election came and went, and the new president cemented his reputation as one of Twitter’s most avid users.. After it was revealed that Russia used social media platforms to try to influence elections in the US and other countries, the platforms became a central figure in the political debate.
“Do they have too much power? Do their content moderation policies privilege one side or the other?” Rain said. “The companies themselves found themselves in the middle of the most intense arguments in culture. And so that’s the environment that Elon Musk is entering now.”
And beyond the shock and outsized personality, Musk’s own description of his new job — “Twitter’s Complaint Hotline Operator” — may turn out to be his biggest challenge yet.
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AP Technology Writer Frank Bajak contributed to this story.
