Here’s Proof Hate Speech Is More Viral on Elon Musk’s Twitter

The ban on Donald Trump's account was lifted by Musk last weekend after he was accused of inciting violence at the Capitol. Social media researchers have warned for months that the return of Trump could cause a wave of division and misinformation on the platform. The analysis shows that hate speech has become more visible under Musk's leadership.

Before and after Musk took ownership of the company, researchers at the Digital Planet group tracked hate speech on the social networking site. They used a data stream from the platform that is known as the firehose to do this. In previous studies, the group has used the same approach to look at toxicity on social media.

To study how Musk's ownership changed Twitter, the researchers searched through the most popular posts between March 1 and November 13 of this year, collecting the 20 most popular, with the 20 most popular being anti-gay, racist, and sexist. They looked at the language in each of the three categories and tried to figure out what they were trying to say.

In the months prior to Musk taking over, only one of the three top 20 lists was found to be anti-Semitic. The others used the relevant key words in a non-hateful manner.

In the weeks after Musk took over, the analysis found that the most popular tweets with potentially toxic language became more prominent with the exception of hate speech. Seven of the top 20 posts in each category were now considered to be hate speech. One of the top 20 were judged to be hate speech.

The analysis was done by the dean of global business at the Fletcher Business School and chair of Digital Planet.

The data could add to the challenges Musk faces as he tries to turn the company around. Advertisers provide the majority of the revenue, but some have said in recent weeks that they will reduce or pause spending until they know more about the platform's content policies. "Advertisers cannot invest their dollars on platforms where comprehensive policies on hate speech and misinformation are not in place and consistently enforced."

The increase in hate speech doesn't seem to have anything to do with changes made by Musk after he acquired the social networking site. Although he initially claimed that the company's policies wouldn't change, he laid off thousands of staff and contractors. In countries where the platform is popular, such as Brazil, activists and researchers who track misinformation say there is no longer anyone at the platform to respond to their warnings.