New research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate has showed that newly ‘streamlined’ social media platform Twitter failed to remove 99 per cent of racist abuse aimed at footballers on the platform last week.
The Center’s analysis, conducted in the week leading up to the already controversial Qatar World Cup, found that of 100 racist tweets reported to Twitter, including posts containing offensive language, monkey emotions, and deportation calls, the platform removed just one – a tweet that repeated a racist slur no less than 16 times. All the other 99 tweets remained live as of Sunday.
The abuse was aimed at 43 players, including England stars Raheem Sterling and Bukayo Saka who were previously among a number of players targeted after England’s Euro 2020 final loss to Italy.
Of the tweets analysed by CCDH 11 used the N-word to describe footballers, 25 used monkey or banana emojis directed at players, 13 called for players to be deported, and 25 told players to “go back to” other countries. A further 13 tweets targeted footballers over their perceived English skills.
The lack of action comes following Elon Musk’s $44bn takeover of the platform, which has seen the Tesla billionaire lay off almost 4,000 staff, while a further 1,200 are believed to have quit of their own volition following a controversial email from their new boss demanding they work longer hours and be more “hardcore.” Latest estimates suggest there could be as few as 2,500 staff remaining at the social media giant, which had employed around 7,500 last month, prior to Musk’s takeover.
In further bad news for policing of offensive comment on the platform, Musk last week updated Twitter’s rules on hate speech, saying that hate speech would no longer necessarily be removed, but would instead be “deboosted & demonetized.” He added that users “won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from the rest of [the] internet.”
Musk did not go into detail on how a Twitter user who is tagged in a post directing hate speech at them would fail to see the post without “seeking it out.”
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment, although most of its communications team are believed to be among the layoffs that have taken place so far.
