SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 22 — Twitter is still under fire. For many reasons with the recent change in management prompting chaos both among users and employees. But the platform is also being singled out for its lack of moderation concerning racist tweets against football players.
Out of 100 tweets reported as containing racist language and directly addressed to football players, Twitter deleted... only one. According to a new study conducted by nonprofit organisation, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a week before the start of the World Cup in Qatar, the social network left 99 tweets online even though they had been reported as containing racist content. Elon Musk’s social network enforced its moderation rules only on one tweet. All the others were still present on Twitter during the weekend, said The Guardian, which reported on the study.
The 100 racist tweets targeted 43 football players, including England internationals Raheem Sterling and Bukayo Saka. These players had already been the target of racist messages on Twitter during the Euro 2020 tournament.
Of the 100 tweets reported, 11 contained the “N-word,” 25 displayed “banana” or “monkey” emojis aimed directly at players, and as many violently called on players to “go back” to another country, 13 called for players to be deported, and another 13 took aim at their English language skills.
After the takeover of Twitter, Elon Musk aimed to assure observers that moderation would not be impacted: “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 might read in the press.”
Following the departure of several thousand employees last week, leading to the hashtag #RIPTwitter, many internet users anticipated deterioration in terms of moderation, or even the end of the social network.
Recently, a video of Argentine fans chanting racist insults against Kylian Mbappé went viral on social networks. The video was still available on Twitter this Monday, November 21.
Prior to the start of the very first match of the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar, on Sunday, November 20, Elon Musk outlined that tweets containing negative and hateful comments would be demonetised. Nor will such comments benefit from a “boost” : “New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from the rest of the internet.” — AFP
