Since the arrival of Elon Musk, Twitter has been the most talked about social network of all, but the criticisms certainly far outweigh the compliments. The Twitter platform has been involved in a new scandal involving a terrible event that happened in 2019: the Christchurch terrorist bombing in New Zealand.
On Saturday, November 26, some users re-uploaded videos of the event and Twitter removed the footage circulating on the platform, but only after the New Zealand government alerted the company, which had not recognized the content as harmful. This is, in fact, the first real scandal of the new course of the platform not directly related to the actions and statements of the new owner.
Those videos were taken by the Australian white supremacist who killed 51 Muslim worshipers at two mosques in the New Zealand city in March 2019, and their re-release was reported by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s office. A spokesperson said Twitter’s automatic reporting feature did not detect the content as malicious. Very strange considering that for years all social networks have been introducing increasingly sophisticated and trained algorithms capable of obscuring violent content in the shortest possible time. Furthermore, these were videos that had previously appeared online, therefore all the more identifiable as dangerous.
Other users have reported the videos, and the government has separately raised the matter with the company: “Twitter advised us overnight that the videos were removed and said it would investigate other cases.”
At the time, the attack on the mosque was broadcast live on various social media platforms and the terrorist manifesto was posted online.
Prime Minister Ardern had launched an appeal to social platforms to counter extremism and disinformation online. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey was in favor of the initiative. Twitter’s content policy has distinguished itself from other platforms for its desire to counter “gore” and extremist content, but also for applying forms of fact-checking on content that can be labeled as fake.
Speaking to the media on Monday afternoon (New Zealand is 12 hours ahead of Italy), Ardern said that while “time will tell” on Twitter’s pledge to remove harmful content, the company has told the government it does not having changed his opinion on his adherence to the appeal launched by the premier known as the “Christchurch Call”
“We will continue to expect (Twitter) to do all it can on a daily basis to remove this content, but also to reduce terrorist and violent extremist content online, as it has pledged to do,” Ardern said.
In early November, Premier Ardern told a summit on national security, disinformation and online extremism that Twitter was deeply involved in the Christchurch appeal “and – to date – has been a really constructive partner.” . But she said the partnership is in “unfamiliar territory” following Musk’s takeover of the company.
The New Zealand leader then appealed directly to the richest man in the world, who defines himself as an “absolutist of freedom of speech”, asking him to “firmly adhere to the principle of transparency”, adding that social media platforms such as Twitter “can be a a force for democracy, a force for connection and for good. But also, if misused, they can do an enormous amount of damage.”
Writing for The Conversation, Markus Luczak-Roesch, associate professor of information systems at the Victoria University of Wellington, said Musk’s takeover was disruptive for the “Christchurch Call”: the entire Twitter team with which the government intended to work has been sacked, as part of the huge job cuts implemented by the multi-billionaire.
Thousands of content moderators, as well as human rights teams, have been fired since the Musk takeover, and the platform has struggled to control harmful content, including the proliferation of disinformation accounts and racist tweets over the period. before the soccer world cup. The return of the Christchurch case could also be directly linked to the lack of controllers.
In a recent post on his own social network, Musk told his 119 million followers that hate speech is down to a third from pre-October peak levels and presented a chart. No further details were provided, but in the circumstances it is legitimate to express some concern.