Elon Musk rips New York Times article as 'utterly false' for claiming major rise in hate speech

New Twitter owner Elon Musk blasted a New York Times article claiming there is an unprecedented rise in hate speech on his social media platform.

Musk alleged that the piece was "utterly false."

Musk also claimed that "hate speech impressions" have declined in spite of user growth and promised that Twitter's Safety account would publish data on the subject weekly.

"Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of reach. Negativity should & will get less reach than positivity," he wrote.

The Times reported that a wave of hate speech has inundated the platform since Musk acquired it in October.

"Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, slurs against Black Americans showed up on the social media service an average of 1,282 times a day. After the billionaire became Twitter’s owner, they jumped to 3,876 times a day," the Times reported.

"Slurs against gay men appeared on Twitter 2,506 times a day on average before Mr. Musk took over. Afterward, their use rose to 3,964 times a day."

It also provided data on the rise of antisemitic posts on the platform, claiming, "And antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61 percent in the two weeks after Mr. Musk acquired the site."

These findings came from the "Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups that study online platforms." The Times touted the data as "the most comprehensive picture to date of how conversations on Twitter have changed since Mr. Musk completed his $44 billion deal for the company in late October."... (Read more)

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