It’s true the sad demise of Twitter is leading to a lot of re-thinking right now.
Since 2010, Twitter has formed the third leg of the social media trinity alomng with YouTube and Facebook.
But since Elon Musk’s takeover the channel has struggled.
The latest piece of the jigsaw is this report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate which has research showing more examples of hate speech across the platform.
CCDH, 2023
- There have been 3,876 daily tweets mentioning the racist n-word on Twitter, up 202% on the average daily rate in 2022 before his takeover of 1,282
- There have been 3,964 daily tweets mentioning the homophobic term f****t on Twitter, up 58% on the average daily rate in 2022 before his takeover of 2,506
- There have been 17,937 daily tweets mentioning the misogynist term c**t on Twitter, up 33% on the average daily rate in 2022 before his takeover of 13,514
- There have been 5,117 daily tweets mentioning the transphobic term t****y on Twitter, up 62% on the average daily rate in 2022 before his takeover of 3,159
There are many people who use Twitter and are upstanding members of the community. No question.
But the Health and Safety Executive in the UK are clear that online abuse aimed at staff is classified as violence in the workplace. This can be named individuals or the individual who looks after the corporate account.
It’s unlikely that Twitter will physically fall over. MySpace didn’t and neither did FriendsReunited. But in my social media reviews for six months I’ve been advising public sector people to dial back on the channel.
This is more evidence for that.