A nonprofit organization that researches links between social media, hate and extremism has been threatened with a lawsuit by X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

A nonprofit organization that researches links between social media, hate and extremism has been threatened with a lawsuit by X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

  • Whirlybird
    1·
    11 months ago

    Misleading, as expected.

    He has threatened to sue them for saying that there is a rise in hate speech without actually being able to prove that there is a rise in hate speech.

      • Whirlybird
        1·
        11 months ago

        Literally page 1 there says all you need to know about what this “research” was out to prove. The very first line:

        1. Tweets mentioning the hateful ‘grooming’ narrative have jumped 119% under Musk

        They’re declaring that the word “grooming” is “hate speech”. It’s not.

        More just on page 1:

        In 2022 before Musk took over, there were an average of 3,011 such tweets per day. This jumped 119% to 6,596 in the four months after his takeover. Note that this analysis captures the volume of discourse around the ‘groomer’ narrative, which includes tweets defending the LGBTQ+ community as well as those leveling the slurs.

        So they’re saying that the overall discourse including those defending against the “slurs” is what has increased, not just actual “hate speech”.

        Still on page 1:

        In particular, they spiked around the following events:

        Ah, so they spiked because of events happening in the world that talk about the thing that is being discussed. Who would have guessed? It’s almost like things that are currently happening get discussed on social media.

        On page 3 they then go on to this:

        1. Just five Twitter accounts driving the ‘grooming’ narrative generate up to $6.4m per year for Twitter in ad revenue

        So as I suggested, they’ve cherry picked specific accounts with high engagement and use of terms that they decided are hate speech and are using those to show how bad twitter is for hate speech lol.

        Sorry but this “research” is ridiculous. It’s the very definition of having a conclusion you want and then working backwards to try and confirm it no matter how.

        • AnonTwo@kbin.social
          1·
          11 months ago

          Hey, you skipped over the word “narrative” Mr. “I’m gonna call this cherrypicking”

        • Rottcodd@kbin.social
          11·
          11 months ago

          It’s the very definition of having a conclusion you want and then working backwards to try and confirm it no matter how.

          I love unintentional irony.

            • AnonTwo@kbin.social
              1·
              11 months ago

              The irony is that you misread the article, quoted parts while still misreading the article, allowing everyone to see that you misread the article

              Then made an argument that only works provided nobody else noticed you misread the article

              Which would be a form of cherrypicking.

              Because you have stepped over that it’s “Grooming Narrative” and not “Grooming” every single post since that one. The conversation is the hate speech, not the specific word.

              • Whirlybird
                1·
                11 months ago

                I didn’t misread the article though, so your entire premise falls apart.

                The conversation is the hate speech, not the specific word.

                Like I said, they didn’t check “the narrative”. They did searches finding combinations of words. To this study, a tweet saying “LGBT people stand against grooming kids!” would count as a “hate speech” post 🤣. If 100 people retweeted that, it counts as 101 “hate speech” occurrences.

                You don’t see the issues with that?

    • Nepenthe@kbin.social
      1·
      11 months ago

      There are multiple links in that article. Among them,

      Researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that the number of tweets containing one of several different racial slurs soared in the week after Musk bought Twitter.

      A racial epithet used to attack Black people was found more than 26,000 times, three times the average for 2022. Use of a slur that targets trans people increased 53%, while instances of an offensive term for homosexual men went up 39% over the yearly average.

      The one Musk cited, the platform’s failure to remove hate speech that’s pretty infamous at this point, focuses on paying users who break company policy only to have their content boosted instead of removed. While I think it’s a small test, it’s been a widely known failing for years that’s not only increased noticeably under his ownership but is being exacerbated by Blue.

      Anyone with time on their hands can verify how little Twitter cares about abusive content. Musk himself has been given the opportunity to rectify this now that it’s been called to his attention, as the companies they criticize usually do.

      Instead of doing anything useful to retain users and advertisers, he’s throwing a tantrum about it that should go directly against his own views on free speech and the free market.