"Twitter Hate Speech Accounts Exploited Israel’s War in Gaza to Grow Four Times Faster", 11 April 2024

A judge tossed a lawsuit from Elon Musk‘s X (formerly Twitter) against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an anti-extremism watchdog, that alleged the group had financially harmed the company by reporting on violent and hateful speech proliferating across its platform. The ruling stated in no uncertain terms that Musk and X were trying to punish the CCDH for exercising First Amendment rights.

Following that court victory, the organization is once again sounding the alarm about X’s lack of sensible moderation, releasing another trove of data that shows how 10 toxic influencers have capitalized on Israel’s months-long siege of Gaza, rapidly expanding their audiences and raking in money by spreading antisemitic and Islamophobic content. The CCDH found that these accounts, which have together amassed 4 million new followers since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants, grew four times faster in the months directly following the attack than they had in the months immediately prior. All benefited from the algorithmic boost that comes with paid blue-check verification, and despite repeated community guideline violations, not one has been suspended.

“None of the accounts deserved the enormous visibility they received by cynically goading, upsetting, and terrorizing others into emotional responses,” writes Imran Ahmed, CEO of the CCDH...

The result, Ahmed warns, is “a race to the bottom of hate and sensationalism with the most profitable ad next to it.” Indeed, the CCDH research shows that a number of major advertisers, from Oreos to the National Basketball Association to Starlink (owned by Musk’s own SpaceX) are having their promotional materials shown in proximity to hateful posts, despite X’s assurances of brand safety and promise that ads will not “serve around potentially objectionable content.” X did not respond to a request for comment on the nonprofit’s findings.

“It is clear from the results of a number of studies by CCDH and others that the new leadership of X has not discouraged antisemites, and instead has effectively welcomed them, and accounts which seek to spread hate,” the report concludes. “The increase in followers and reach for the accounts identified in this report is, we believe, a direct result of the policy changes made under owner, Elon Musk, and CEO, Linda Yaccarino.”

Overall, the report presents a bleak portrait of a platform “failing to uphold its duties to keep users safe,” incentivizing hate speech with the rewards of increased engagement and profit while continuing to serve ads alongside harmful material that violates X’s own policies but is not removed when reported. In fact, these accounts are also eligible for ad-sharing revenue based on the organic impressions on promotions that appear in the replies to their extremist and racist posts.