98% of posts reported for hate speech stay visible on Musk's X: Study
The vast majority of posts hateful of Jews, Muslims, and Palestinians are being left on Elon Musk's online platform X, formerly known as Twitter, despite being reported for breaching platform rules, hate speech researchers say.
At the end of October, researchers from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) reported 200 posts to X relating to the Hamas attack on Israel and the Gaza war, which, according to the researchers, clearly violated the rules.
Only four of them were removed in the following week, CCDH reported on Tuesday. At the time of reporting, several examples given by the research centre remained visible.
Several sample posts incited violence against Palestinians, Jews and Muslims, while others denied the Holocaust and the existence of Palestinians as a people, according to a blog post by the CCDH.
"Musk has created a safe space for racists, and has sought to make a virtue of the impunity that leads them to attack, harass and threaten marginalized communities," CCDH chief executive Imran Ahmed said.
Ahmed blamed the high visibility of hate-filled posts on Musk cutting safety and moderation staff during mass layoffs, as well as offering increased visibility to users willing to pay $8/month for a premium account as part of the company's new business model to increase revenue.
X did not initially respond to the organization's criticism. A few hours earlier, however, the service published a blog post on how it deals with content that violates the platform's rules.
The post by X stated that action had been taken against more than 320,000 posts for hate speech and more than 3,000 accounts have been removed. The teams have intervened in over 25,000 posts due to manipulated content.
In recent weeks, X had received an official request from the EU Commission for compliance with the new EU Digital Services Act (DSA).
Online platforms are obliged by the Digital Services Act (DSA) to take strict action against illegal content such as hate speech and incitement to hatred online.
Musk's platform sued the CCDH in August. In the lawsuit, X accused the group of illegally accessing the service's data for reports on dealing with hate speech.
X is thought to have made significant losses due to advertising customers pulling their campaigns from the company out of fears of their ads appearing alongside hate-filled content.
Several rival platforms, such as Bluesky, Mastadon and Meta's Threads, have sought to gain from users leaving X over its policy changes and the perceived rise in hate speech.
