Twitter becomes more toxic; far away from what Musk promised

Melbourne: When Elon Musk made a bid to buy the microblogging platform Twitter earlier this year, he had made many promises, such as the removal of bots, free speech, removing biases etc. However, after two months of his taking over, the nature of the platform is far from what he has promised, The Conversation reports.

Against what Musk said as one of his motivations for buying the platform that it was biased against the right wing, Twitter's own researchers have found it wrong. They inferred that the platform is in favour of the right.

Musk had promised that he would make Twitter a platform for free speech since the same is stifled by content moderation. But research shows that after his take over, the supposed arena of free speech is filled with "Astroturf" causes, trolling and misinformation run by bots and malicious users. It has seen a rise in hate speech, too, after Musk took over it.

It is found that the manipulation has become sophisticated, with coordinated networks of users and bots manipulating Twitter's algorithms to artificially increase or decrease the popularity of content. Before Musk, Twitter had put full efforts to restrict such abuse in the final years but weakening the same would make those abuse rampant.

The Conversation writes that Twitter "quietly" posted a notice that it would no longer enforce its policy against COVID-19 misinformation in November this year. Medical misinformation is a severe issue on social media which has serious repercussions. Social media facilitates the spread of misinformation and amplifies content, triggering the heightening of emotions. Social media have played a role in reducing the uptake of immunity vaccines, particularly during the pandemic, the reports say, adding that there is evidence proving so.

Further, this misinformation on Twitter spill into other social media platforms, too, hampering their effort to check misinformation.

Further, chances are that under Musk, Twitter will lose its pre-Musk or robust form in many areas. Some of the unique and valuable services Twitter provides will disappear. These include archiving tweets, which is a treasure trove of human behaviour, aiding in research. The possibility of crowd-sourcing during natural disasters and emergencies.

Twitter "has been a great venue for crowd-sourced eyewitness data," The Conversation quoted an expert.

In the field of open-source intelligence (OSINT), the platform was invaluable in tracking down war crimes. Crowd-sourcing on threats like police brutality, violence against particular communities etc.

A digital community on Twitter, Black Twitter, circulates topics, stories and images that directly relate to and affect the Black community. This online community will be lost on the platform. The video of George Floyd's death in police custody was first publicised on Twitter, and then mainstream news circulated the footage. Losing Black Twitter would mean losing robust, rapid and authentic information sharing on police brutality within the Black community.

"Black Twitter and the information it provides is literally a matter of life and death," The Conversation quoted another expert.

In addition to everything, in December 2022, the platform disbanded the company's Trust and Safety Council. Also, the Twitter accounts of journalists covering the company were suspended while Musk reinstated ex-US President Donald Trump's account along with other controversial personalities' accounts.