Twitter moderation has been, is and will be one of the most controversial aspects of this social network. With his previous management team or with Elon Musk at the helm, and from all political, religious, ideological and other types of sensibilities, we will always find people who think that ideas “of his suit” are persecuted and punished by moderators, However, they are tremendously lax with those at the opposite end, the opposite sidewalk or Villa Abajo, assuming we are in Villa Arriba.
Yes, we can accuse of an important difference between the current administration and the previous one, and that is that the first created and grew the moderation teamswhile Musk, in his cutting frenzy, has finished with practically all of them, according to multiple sources have stated. And that, it may seem so or not, the truth is that it makes a big difference that, as in this case, can have quite harmful effects for the social network.
According to data from last year, each minute around 350,000 tweets are published, about 500 million messages a day. Reviewing all this content is humanly impossible, so Twitter must use algorithms that detect (or at least try) content that does not comply with the service standards and, of course, rely on moderation teams to review complaints, claims to them, etc. It’s not easy, of course, that’s why the show of willingness to prosecute inappropriate and/or illegal content is the argument that the social network can use to show its will.
Thus, as we can read in TechCrunch Twitter faces lawsuit for failing to adequately pursue anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial content. The lawsuit has been filed in a regional court in Berlin by HateAid, a group that campaigns against hate speech, and the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS). The lawsuit argues that Twitter is not enforcing its own rules against content. antisemite.
In this case, we are not only faced with what we can consider inappropriate content, since we must remember that this type of hate messages are prohibited in Germany, so the social network must ensure, as far as possible and with the necessary equipment. of moderation, for reviewing all the reports on this type of content and, in case of confirming that they do not comply with the German legal framework, or eliminating them or, at least, blocking them so that they cannot be seen from IP addresses of that country.
“Although Twitter prohibits anti-Semitic hostilities in its Rules and Policies, the platform leaves much of that content online. Even if the platform is alerted by users”, argue the litigants. “Current studies show that 84% of posts containing anti-Semitic hate speech were not reviewed by social media platforms, as shown in a study by the Center to Counter Digital Hate. Which means that Twitter knows that Jews are being publicly attacked on the platform every day and that anti-Semitism is becoming normal in our society. And that the platform’s response is in no way adequate”.
