New research published last week by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) shows that X (formerly Twitter) continues to host nearly 86% of the 300 posts we reported for hate speech – which included tweets promoting and glorifying antisemitism, anti-black racism, neo-Nazism, white supremacy, and other racism.
Researchers collected a sample of 300 posts from 100 accounts that were categorized as containing hate speech, amounting to three posts per account. Together the accounts identified in the research have a sum total of a million followers.
One week after posts were reported to X using the platform’s official user reporting tools, X continued to host posts that promoted racist caricatures of Jewish people, denied the existence or mocked victims of the Holocaust, labeled Hitler as “A hero who will help secure a future for white children,” and promoted conspiracies that Jews promote mass migration and “control the blacks.”
This is not a situation where X can reject the research, claiming that they couldn’t possibly review every post on the platform. We gave them the tweets, using their own systems for reporting content that breaks X’s own community standards, and they failed to take them down. This is about their will to act, not their ability to act. And it shows that when you ring the alarm bell, they’ve put in earplugs and are simply not listening.
Antisemitism is an ancient evil that rests on lies and disinformation that have persisted for centuries and have long existed in American culture. But last year saw a surge, with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reporting the highest number of antisemitic incidents in the United States since the organization began keeping track. Many of those incidents happened online, which is consistent with CCDH’s previous research. In the year leading up to the historic level of incidents, CCDH found that Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube took no action on 84% of reported posts containing anti-Jewish hatred.
The White House last year released a landmark national strategy to address those alarming trends, reflecting the country’s long-standing commitment to fighting antisemitism. The opposition to anti-Jewish hatred is felt instinctively by Americans and is connected to the ideals that anti-Black racism, anti-LGBTQ+ hatred, and all forms of bigotry have no place in our society.
Elon Musk is opposed to fighting antisemitism and makes Jew-hatred easier
Elon Musk has shown that he not only stands in direct opposition to this view, but his actions since taking the helm of X have additionally made it easier for extremists and neo-Nazis to publish and spread the anti-Jewish hatred, lies, and conspiracy theories researched in our new report.
The return of Kanye West to X – a decision reportedly taken by Musk personally – is one of those actions that led to the proliferation of hate, much of which is antisemitic, on the platform since the acquisition.
Musk has been casting around for a reason to blame others for his own failings as CEO. But we all know that within months of his takeover of the platform, he put up the Bat Signal to neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and known spreaders of disinformation, welcoming them back to X with open arms. Musk has decided that Ye, who has an inglorious track record of posting hate speech, deserves to be on his platform.
Last week, Musk declared his intention to sue the ADL, America’s oldest organization working to counter antisemitism, claiming its criticism of X for allowing a boom in anti-Jewish hate on the platform negatively impacted its advertising revenue. X Corp is already suing CCDH, having filed a lawsuit against us on July 31, over our reporting of the proliferation of hate and disinformation on the platform under Musk’s leadership. Interestingly, with both CCDH and the ADL, the decision to threaten us with legal action came just days after chief executives of those organizations met Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, and urged her in private meetings to do better at enforcing their own rules on hate speech.
Today, advertisers are under more pressure than ever before to protect their brands and keep pace with rapidly changing cultural shifts. People want to see and feel that the brands they support reflect their values and the way that they feel about the world. It’s no wonder that having their ads appear next to swastikas and pro-Nazi content on X has caused advertisers to flee the platform.
Our research shows that the majority of the public understands the need for greater safety, transparency, accountability, and responsibility – what we call our STAR Framework – on social media platforms. It’s time that either social media companies change or that laws are put into place to ensure they can be held accountable when, for example, their decisions undermine the safety of Jewish people across the US.
The health of our society depends on it.
The writer is the founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a US nonprofit that researches the architecture of online hate and misinformation.