Hate Speech Down On Twitter, Suspended Accounts To Be Back Soon: Elon Musk

Days after vowing to earn back the "trust of the people", Elon Musk claimed that hate speech impressions on Twitter were down by one-third from pre-spike levels. Congratulating the Twitter team, the new owner of the social media giant tweeted an image showing the dip in hate speech on the platform.

Hate speech impressions down by 1/3 from pre-spike levels. Congrats to Twitter team! pic.twitter.com/5BWaQoIlip

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022

"Reducing the max allowed tweets per day to a number below what a speed typist on meth could do was helpful," Elon Musk said, adding that he while he was in "half a mind to wag my finger at the 1500 accounts that caused the spike", he would resist.

Musk had announced this month that Twitter's new policy is "freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach", adding that Twitter will demonetize and not promote tweets containing hate speech or otherwise "negative" content

A tide of slurs and racist memes had swelled on the platform in the wake of the billionaire's Twitter buyout which prompted the formation of the "content moderation council", a clear attempt by Musk to retain advertisers' confidence.

I'm assuming the "hate speech" metric is a measurement of how often racial slurs or certain bigoted phrases are used?

— John Willow (@JohnathonWillow) November 24, 2022

On the other hand, Musk has also restored several controversial accounts that had previously been banned or suspended, including Donald Trump and Kanye West, both of whose accounts had been banned for hate speech.

Don't kill what ye hate
Save what ye love

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022

The flood of hate speech after Musk's takeover put significant pressure on his promises to not only restore people's ability to speak freely, but also managing the agreeability of the platform for advertisers, to whom he pledged in a letter that Twitter would not spiral into a "free-for-all hellscape" under his leadership, Bloomberg reported.

However, not all are convinced by Musk's promises. Yesterday, Volkswagen's brands have halted all paid activities on Twitter until further notice.

Earlier this month, Volkswagen, which owns Audi together with the VW, Seat, Cupra, Lamborghini, Bentley, Ducati and Porsche, said it had recommended the brands pause paid advertising on Twitter until further notice following Elon Musk's takeover of the platform.

Responding to a question asking him how he would define hate speech on the platform, Musk said, "This is simply based on the same list of terms that Twitter has used for some time, so ceteris paribus."