The Center for Countering Digital Hate on Twitter: After Musk, Meta, and Threads, the Internet Has Comes Into Disrepute

The lawsuit comes as Musk’s chaotic management of the company and abrupt changes in policies and features have sent many users to Twitter alternatives, including rival Meta’s newly launched Threads, and as Twitter’s advertising revenue has plunged.

The organization publishes research about the spread of hate on social media. One recent study claims that 140 characters is all it takes to make fun of people on the internet, and a second study states that the anti- gay narrative has grown by leaps and bounds since Musk took over.

The suit alleges that the Center for Countering Digital Hate violated Twitter’s terms of service and federal law by scraping data from the social media site. It claims the group cherry picks posts from the site to make it look like Twitter is flooded with hate speech and other harmful content, in order to silence users.

Republican lawmakers and right-wing activists say that researchers who study online propaganda are trying to suppress opposing views.

Musk often takes aim at critics. In December he suspended several journalists who covered the company (he reinstated most of them days later, under pressure from press freedom advocates), and banned a user who posted about the movements of his private jet using publicly available information. In 2018, he hired a private investigator to dig into a British man who had criticized Musk’s efforts to help rescue a boys’ soccer team in Thailand.

Kanye West’s Twitter Follow-Up after a Public Image of a Swastika in Star of David Revisited

Twitter disputes the claim that hateful content is on the rise, saying views of such posts have declined. “Free expression and platform safety are not at odds,” the company wrote in a blog post on Monday.

The platform has seen an increase in hate speech since Musk bought it. White supremacists, Qanon conspiracy theorists and far right extremists have their accounts back on the website after the entrepreneur loosened the rules about what could be posted. Over the weekend, he allowed Ye, the rapper and mogul formerly known as Kanye West, back after a months-long suspension for posting an image of a swastika inside a Star of David.

A research done in 2021 shows that 12 people were responsible for most of the false claims made about the COVID-19 vaccine on social media.