Elon Musk has had to keys to Twitter for a day now, and Bloomberg is reporting that the site is roiling with hate speech already, “sparking concern” that a new era of hate speech is upon us.
A tide of slurs and racist memes swells on #Twitter, sparking concern the site is entering an era of hateful speech following the takeover by @elonmusk. https://t.co/YI8cppsgLM
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 29, 2022
Davey Alba reports:
In the wake of Elon Musk buying Twitter Inc., a tide of slurs and racist memes swelled on the platform, sparking concern that the site is entering an era of hateful speech.
Twitter has long wrestled with how to enforce content policies fairly on its platform in order to appease the advertisers, users and powerful world leaders that use its service. But as Musk, a self-styled “free speech absolutist,” took over ownership of the company, some conservative officials, partisan extremists and conspiracy peddlers saw reason to celebrate the change.
…
Dozens of anonymous trolls signed up for Twitter in the past day according to an analysis by Bloomberg, broaching topics that had been heavily moderated by Twitter in the past — such as levying hate speech against protected groups and promoting falsehoods about Covid-19 and its vaccines.
“An analysis by Bloomberg.”
For every “tide” you can point to, I can show you a literal tsunami of disgusting tweets from progressives using every racial slur, epithet, calls to violence, threats, and doxxing that has ‘somehow’ has gone unnoticed under the previous regime for damn near a decade. Wake up.
— Merianne Jensen (@MerianneJensen) October 29, 2022
More lies.
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) October 29, 2022
They have to build their narrative I guess. It's been pleasant really.
— Jake Wilde (@PragmaticDude) October 29, 2022
I haven't seen one.
— Bailey's mom (@lafkas_m) October 29, 2022
I've truly enjoyed watching you people raze your own industry and salt the earth remaining.
And it pleases me more that you cannot stop doing it.
— Bohemio of the Reeeeing Twenties (@El__Bohemio) October 29, 2022
Seriously, Steve! It's outrageous! I had never seen Ligma Johnson on Twitter before yesterday!
— Aldous Huxley's Ghost™ (@AF632) October 29, 2022
I have not seen it.
A level playing field looks like oppression to those used to favoritism.
— Forest Garner (@garner_forest) October 29, 2022
Have not seen one.
— LLJ !! Make🇺🇸FL 🦩 (@nornie714) October 29, 2022
Trying to make a story where a story does not exist.
— Bill S (@respondrecover) October 29, 2022
Claims spike in hate/racist statements but not one tweet is referenced in the article???
I’ll take things that have not happened for $1,000.
— Jonathan Preston (@idrick) October 29, 2022
Give it a rest.
— Kris Williams (@KrisWilliams) October 29, 2022
— Leigh🌴☀️🌵 (@Hammock_Cat) October 29, 2022
— Mike Kanin (@KaninMike) October 29, 2022
They must be hiring a sketch artist to depict the TIDE of hate since one would think an example may go a long way
— Michael Schramm (@mschramm06) October 29, 2022
“Rep. Jim Jordan, a Republican of Ohio, also cheered Musk’s takeover of Twitter with a post on Friday morning: ‘Free speech. Liberal tears.’ He gained at least 40,419 followers in the same timeframe, according to Bloomberg’s analysis.” That’s about the only example they give of hate speech.
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Related:
Stevie Van Zandt says Elon Musk will never be forgiven if he allows Adolf Hitler back on Twitter https://t.co/2j8MXSFKye
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 29, 2022