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Fact check: Musk’s claim about a fall in hate speech doesn’t stand up to scrutiny

Posted on November 10, 2022 in News.

Montage of Elon Musk looking away next to the Twitter logo

In the face of criticism about a recent rise of hateful language on Twitter, Elon Musk claimed that Twitter’s “strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged”. He also claimed that, at times last week, hateful speech declined to “below our prior norms”.

And yet, the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s analysis of data from the social media analytics tool Brandwatch shows that the week in question saw an uptick in the amount of hateful language being tweeted. Brandwatch counts retweets and quote retweets in these figures.

What we found

In the week beginning October 31, the first full week under Musk’s ownership, there were:

  • 26,228 tweets and retweets mentioning the slur n**ger, triple the 2022 average
  • 33,926 tweets and retweets mentioning the slur tra**y, up 53% on the 2022 average
  • 21,903 tweets and retweets mentioning the slur fa**ot, up 39% on the 2022 average
  • 2,598 tweets and retweets mentioning the slur k*ke, up 23% on the 2022 average
  • 1,256 tweets and retweets mentioning the slur w*g, up 62% on the 2022 average
  • 935 tweets and retweets mentioning the slur sp*c, up 67% on the 2022 average

The figures show that despite claims from Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, that the platform had succeeded in reducing the number of times hate speech was being seen on Twitter’s search and trending page, the actual volume of hateful tweets has spiked.

Notes

  • Elon Musk’s full tweet reads: “Again, to be crystal clear, Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged. In fact, we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline *below* our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press.”

Elon Musk, Twitter, 4 November 2022, https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588666105023041536 

Elon Musk Tweet that reads: Again, to be crystal clear, Twitter's strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged. In fact, we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline *below* our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press.
  • Elon Musk completed the Twitter deal on 27 October 2022

New York Times, 27 October 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/27/technology/elon-musk-twitter-deal-complete.html

  • Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, has claimed that the platform had succeeded in reducing the number of times hate speech was being seen on Twitter’s search and trending page.

Yoel Roth, Twitter, 9 November 2022, https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/1590422124606681088

Tweet by Yoel Roth that reads: Update on our efforts to combat hateful conduct: We've not only mitigated the recent surge in harmfl behavior, but have reduced impressions on this content in Search by ~90% relative to even prior baseline levels. We're continuing our work to make Twitter safer every day.

Methodology

  • Data was collected using Brandwatch, which includes original tweets, retweets and quote retweets.
  • Tweets analyzed were from all locations worldwide but were restricted to the English language

We can’t let there be any slip in the hard-fought progress we’ve made over years to hold Twitter to account for hate and misinformation on their platform. It’s all in jeopardy if Twitter’s new CEO gets his bonfire of moderation and hate speech policies.

CCDH will keep scrutinizing Twitter and its new owner’s changes to ensure that the platform doesn’t become a safe space for hate and abuse.