Elon Musk wants to change the way hateful content is moderated on Twitter. The Tesla owner now intends to rely heavily on automated moderation systems to identify and remove hateful content. According to Ella Irwin, the new head of trust and security for the social network, some manual examinations have been eliminated to facilitate these new processes, reported The Guardian Saturday, December 3,
Now, tweets reported by trusted personalities, deemed trustworthy by the platform and whose reporting is usually accurate, are automatically removed, he said. Twitter also favors restricting broadcasts rather than completely removing certain hate speech.
Ella Irwin justified this development by the fact that Twitter in the past had made the mistake of using human expertise, which takes a lot of time and work. Also, according to Ella Irwin, Twitter is more aggressively restricting hashtags and search results that can lead to abuse in areas like child exploitation.
Rise of hate online
According to Reuters, this move towards more automation comes as researchers report a significant increase in hate speech on the social network. A phenomenon that has been accentuated since Elon Musk’s restoration of the accounts suspended on the platform under the company’s previous management.
Twitter has been evolving in a turbulent environment since its acquisition by the owner of Tesla. Waves of layoffs driven by the latter have halved the company’s global workforce, which also faces crucial questions about its ability and willingness to moderate harmful and illegal content.
Also, despite Elon Musk announcing his return, advertisers, Twitter’s main income, left the platform over concerns about the safety of their brand. Elon Musk, however, promised a “significant strengthening of content moderation and the protection of freedom of expression” during a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron.
Source: BFM TV
