KUALA LUMPUR – The spike in toxicity and hate on X that followed Elon Musk’s US$44 billion acquisition in October 2022 could be attributed to the platform shedding more than 1,000 “safety and public policy” staffers globally.
The platform’s global trust and safety staff have been reduced by a third, including an 80% reduction in the number of safety engineers, since the acquisition, parent company X Corp told Australian online watchdog eSafety Commission.
The number of moderators X directly employs have been reduced by more than half, while the number of global public policy staff have also been reduced by almost 80%.
This and the reinstatement of more than 6,100 banned accounts had created a perfect storm for the spread of harmful content, said the commission in a statement today.
In the report, X said it had no full-time staff specifically dedicated to hateful conduct issues globally, and no specific team for this policy during the period covered by the notice, although it said it had broader teams who worked on these issues.
When the commission asked what tools were used to detect volumetric attacks or “pile-on” in breach of X’s targeted harassment policy, the company said no tools were specifically designed to detect this type of abuse on the service.
Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who is a former Twitter employee, said 1,213 specialist trust and safety staff had left X, which would inevitably lead to any social media platform becoming “more toxic and less safe for users”
“You’re really creating a bit of a perfect storm. A number of these reinstated users were previously banned for online hate. If you let the worst offenders back on, while at the same time significantly reducing trust and safety personnel whose job it is to protect users from harm, there are clear concerns about the implications for the safety of users.
“Response times to hateful tweets have slowed by 20% since the acquisition and response times to hateful direct messages have slowed by 75%, with users not receiving a response for up to 28 hours.
“We know that online abuse is frequently targeted at victims via direct messaging, with clear intent to cause harm.”
Australia is spearheading a global push to regulate social media, demanding that tech companies present how they are addressing hate speech and child sexual abuse, among others.
Last October, the commission slapped X with an A$610,500 (RM1.9 million) fine for failing to address child pornography on the platform.
X did not pay the infringement notice and sought judicial review of the commission’s reliance on the transparency notice and the giving of the service provider notification as well as the infringement notice.
At the same time, the commission has requested the judicial review be heard in tandem with the civil penalty proceedings to avoid delays. – January 11, 2024