Linda Yaccarino: Report says hateful content on Twitter up: Read CEO Linda Yaccarino’s response – Times of India

Several reports in the past have said that since Elon Musk‘s takeover, Twitter has seen a surge in hateful content. One such report cites researchers as saying that that a series of content policy changes “led to a dramatic spike in hateful, violent and inaccurate posts on the platform.”
A report by Bloomberg said that the researchers at Center for Countering Digital Hate claim that during Musk’s tenure, hate speech towards minority communities increased. Another group from NGO Anti-Defamation League claimed that reports of harassment went up and extremist content spiked; and Media Matters organisation said that COVID-19 misinformation rose on Twitter under Musk.
“Musk has repeatedly said that hate speech has decreased on the platform, but based on the data studies that we have done, we have not seen that. We have seen the opposite,” Kayla Gorgarty, deputy research director at Media Matters, was quoted as saying.
Here’s what CEO Linda Yaccarino has to say
According to Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, the claims in the Bloomberg article are not true. She wrote a strong worded note on her handle saying that more than 99% of content users and advertisers see on Twitter is healthy. Here’s her note:
A Bloomberg article today claims that harmful content viewed on Twitter is on the rise, but that’s not true. Here’s what is true – more than 99% of content users and advertisers see on Twitter is healthy.
Which means only a small amount of content requires enforcement. But no matter the amount, we will keep doing whatever it takes to make this platform as safe and healthy as possible.
The Bloomberg story pulled together a collection of incorrect, misleading, and outdated metrics, mostly from the period shortly after Twitter’s acquisition. It also lacks extremely important context not to mention critical updates on our progress and actions.
Over the past 8 months, we’ve made progress on reducing the spread of hate speech, proactively preventing child exploitation, and giving brands more control over where their ads appear – from adjacency controls to third-party verification.
Each step of the way, Twitter has been more transparent about this work than other platforms, and groups outside of Twitter have validated our impact.
Recently we’ve expanded our Freedom of Speech Not Reach policy enforcement because we’re seeing exceptional results. For example, in comparison to a healthy Tweet, any Tweet that’s labeled with this enforcement is restricted from scaling and experiences a dramatic drop in reach of more than 80%. Additionally, we proactively prevent all ads from appearing adjacent to any content that’s labeled.
And in the next two weeks, we’re further expanding our ad placement controls to better support the tremendous growth of video consumption on the platform. We’re actively building pre-bid inventory filtering that will allow even more control over content adjacencies.
Every other platform will tell you the work is never done. That’s true for them and for Twitter. But Twitter’s progress is real, we’ve been transparent about it, and we’re proud of it. And we just wanted you to know the facts.
Musk, who had previously rejected claims in several such reports, replied to Yaccarino’s note by saying, “Exactly.”