Earlier this month, on the Morgan Stanley TMT Convention, Elon offered an summary of how Twitter is performing, which included a spread of stats and notes, together with this chart.

That aligns with Musk’s public statements about tackling problematic parts of the app, together with each hate speech and CSAM content material – but specialists have raised questions in regards to the fact of this, and the way Musk and Co. are literally measuring such, provided that exterior evaluation suggests this isn’t the case.

This has come beneath query as soon as once more, with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) lately discovering that incidents of anti-Semitic speech within the app have risen sharply since Musk took the helm.

As reported by The Washington Submit:

“The examine, which used machine-learning instruments to determine seemingly antisemitic tweets, discovered that the typical weekly variety of such posts ‘greater than doubled after Musk’s acquisition’ – a pattern that has held within the months after Musk took over. The evaluation discovered a median of over 6,200 posts per week showing to comprise antisemitic language between June 1 and Oct. 27, the day Musk accomplished his $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter. However that determine rose to over 12,700 by means of early February – a 105 % improve”

Certainly, in response to ISD’s evaluation, the quantity of antisemitic hate speech on Twitter has remained regular for the reason that Musk takeover, indicating that, opposite to Twitter’s personal knowledge, hate speech is definitely up considerably within the app.

Which makes some sense. Musk has overseen the reinstatement of over 60,000 Twitter accounts that had beforehand been banned, many for hate speech violations, and evaluation additionally means that many of those accounts have resumed their earlier tweeting habits, sharing hate speech, misinformation, and so forth.

Inside that context, it appears logical that hate speech may solely improve – but, Elon and Co. have repeatedly claimed that they’re doing extra to fight adverse parts than the corporate has ever performed earlier than, which has received them many supporters within the course of, notably within the case of CSAM materials.

Late final 12 months, numerous CSAM campaigners praised Musk for ‘ridding Twitter of kid pornography and youngster trafficking hashtags’, which, at the very least on the floor, seems to have had some influence on halting CSAM materials completely within the app.

Twitter itself has additionally claimed victory on this, sharing this chart on its CSAM efficiency.

However specialists have additionally refuted these figures, noting that CSAM content material remains to be prevalent within the app, whereas Musk has additionally eradicated 15% of the platform’s belief and security employees, the crew that’s liable for detecting and actioning such instances.

Once more, on stability, it doesn’t appear doable that Twitter could possibly be bettering its efficiency in these crucial areas on the charges that it’s claiming, given diminished sources and funding. Nevertheless it’s arduous to know precisely what is going on, as a result of Elon and Co. are saying one factor, whereas exterior evaluation means that the true final result may be very totally different.  

It does, nonetheless, appear secure to say that Twitter’s efficiency is probably going not as superb because the Twitter 2.0 crew needs to say, and that these stay important and urgent points, which can proceed to be key areas that require focus, even when sure points are being addressed as a part of the brand new crew’s up to date push.

Ideally, Twitter will proceed to refine and enhance its processes, and discover new methods to sort out hate speech. Nevertheless it’s an ongoing, and ever-evolving drawback, for which there isn’t a true victory that may be claimed.

Hopefully, Twitter’s charts replicate ongoing effort, not a singular push.