2023-08-01 13:50:23
In a statement dated Monday July 31, Twitter – renamed X – announced that it had filed a complaint against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). According to the social network, the English NGO held “ a series of disturbing and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically in the words used by the company’s lawyer in a letter sent to the CCDH on July 20.
In its letter, Twitter focuses its accusations on a series of studies recently published by the NGO, in which the latter accuses the platform of allowing hateful accounts to flourish. In one of these works, reports the New York Times, the CCDH noted that, out of 100 Twitter Blue accounts reported as spreading hate speech, 99 had not been subject to any sanction. According to Twitter, the NGO would have chosen these accounts in a partisan way, by opting for members who do not not conform to [son] ideological agenda ».
A methodology called into question
Moreover, according to the company, the methodology of these studies would be erroneous. A criticism shared in part by Alex Stamos, the former head of security at Facebook, now an assistant professor at the Center for Security and International Cooperation at Stanford University (United States). In a podcast published on July 31the academic criticizes the NGO for supporting “claims that are not supported by evidence, and certainly are not peer-reviewed, just as they do not employ any sort of methodological criteria or standards that can be observed and proven by third parties”.
“I have never seen them invent anything”nevertheless tempers the academic, who also emphasizes that Twitter, unlike Facebook, greatly complicates the work of researchers who work on online hatred, in hindering access to certain data, and preventing access to others.
In the letter from its lawyer, Twitter also accuses, without providing any evidence for the moment, the CCDH of financing itself from competitors of Twitter and “foreign governments”. An accusation that the NGO refutes in the columns of New York Timesclaiming not to accept “no funding from tech companies or governments”. “From a social network, this is an unprecedented increase in pressure towards researchersworries the founder of the organization, Imran Ahmed, quoted by the Associated Press agency. Musk has declared open war. If he succeeds in silencing us, other researchers will follow. »
Freedom of expression
In its press release, the social network disputes the accusations of laissez-faire. It claims to have improved its fight against hateful content through the application of innovative rules. “Today, more than 99.99% of content is healthy”, the company maintains – an unverifiable figure. Twitter also recalls its commitment to freedom of expression, of which Elon Musk is an absolutist supporter.
Since the arrival of the billionaire at its head in October 2022, Twitter has certainly freed the speech of certain members of the social network, but also blocked accounts which harmed him personally. Furthermore, the company has sent particularly negative signals regarding its fight against online hatred, a long-standing problem for its teams.
Twitter has been operating like this for several months with human resources extremely reduced and notably got rid of most of its moderation team, allowing aggressive content to prosper. On his personal Twitter account, Elon Musk has increased his appeals to the American white supremacist movement, occasionally taking up and amplifying arguments circulating in the fascist and conspiracy community. Mr. Musk also authorized the return to Twitter of far-right personalities with violent speeches, including some defenders of Nazi or homophobic theories, accepting in particular, three days ago, the reactivation of the account of the rapper Kanye West, whose statements anti-Semites shocked in December 2022.
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In the coming months, Twitter will undoubtedly have to work on other legal fronts. Its change of name and logo to X could thus pose rights problems (there are already hundreds of registered trademarks linked to this letter in the USA as well as’and Europe), as well as the giant sign installed on its San Francisco premises which, although it must now be removed, has been subject to twenty-four complaints as well as an investigation opened by the municipality.
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