New criticism of Musk's X platform from sued researchers
The hate speech researchers sued by Elon Musk's online platform X are back with new criticism of the service. At the end of October, the experts reported 200 posts to X (formerly Twitter) relating to the Hamas attack on Israel and the Gaza war, which, according to the researchers, clearly violated the rules. A week later, 196 of them were still online, reported the CCDH organization.
The posts included calls for violence against Jews, Palestinians and Muslims, according to a blog post by the CCDH (Center for Countering Digital Hate). Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories were also spread and the Nazi mass murder of Jews was denied or trivialized.
X did not initially respond to the organization's criticism. A few hours earlier, however, the service published a blog post on how it deals with content that violates the platform's rules. Among other things, it stated that action had been taken against more than 320,000 posts for hate speech, among other things. More than 3000 accounts have been removed. The teams have intervened in over 25,000 posts due to manipulated content.
Online platforms must take action against hate speech and incitement to hatred
In recent weeks, X had received an official request from the EU Commission to comply with the new EU Digital Services Act (DSA). Online platforms are obliged by the Digital Services Act (DSA) to take strict action against illegal content such as hate speech and incitement to hatred online.
Musk's platform sued the online researchers who uncover hate speech and false information online in the summer. In the lawsuit, X accuses CCDH of illegally accessing the service's data for reports on dealing with hate speech. The company suffered damage as a result because advertising customers dropped out.
The ongoing controversy surrounding X's handling of hate speech and incitement to hatred on the Internet was brought to the fore again by the sued researchers. Despite reported violations of rules, such as calls for violence and denial of the Holocaust, numerous posts related to the Gaza conflict remained online for a week. The EU Commission has since issued an official request to X to comply with the new EU Digital Services Act, demanding stricter action against such content.
Source: www.dpa.com
