PM Jacinda Ardern acknowledged that social media platforms can do ‘a huge amount of harm’ if misused and hopes that new owner Elon Musk will stick to his ‘principal of transparency'. Video / NZ Herald
Twitter has failed to respond to questions from New Zealand’s cyber security agency as the platform loosens its rules under new owner Elon Musk, and misinformation and harmful content fears grow.
Earlier this week, it emerged that Twitter had formally abandoned efforts to police its Covid and vaccine misinformation policy.
And overnight it emerged that an NZ white nationalist group has rejoined Twitter. The Herald has chosen not to name the group.
Netsafe is the lead agency for the Harmful Digital Communications Act. It usually serves as a conduit for users with complaints, and ordinarily has a direct line to the big social media platforms.
But in Twitter’s case, communications seem to have completely broken down since Musk culled half the firm’s workforce, including members of safety and policy teams - although Netsafe is still using diplomatic language to describe the “crickets” situation.
“As a long-term New Zealand participant on Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, we are disappointed in the decision to abandon its misinformation policy,” Netsafe chief executive Brent Carey said in a statement to the Herald.
“We reached out to Elon Musk and Twitter’s Asia Pacific Team for the rationale behind the move. At this stage, Twitter has not informed us of any future decisions regarding its online harm policies.”
Twitter has already been under fire for undermining the Christchurch Call safety initiative by laying off staff our Government dealt with on the safety initiative, and failing to detect or quickly remove a copy of the gunman’s video last week.
Regulators around the world have expressed concerns. On Wednesday, a top European Union official warned Musk that Twitter needs to beef up measures to protect users from hate speech, misinformation and other harmful content to avoid violating new rules that threaten tech giants with big fines or even a ban in the 27-nation bloc.
And yesterday, the new Twitter owner revealed he had met with Apple CEO Tim Cook after fears were raised Twitter could be banned from Apple and Google’s app stores for violating their community guidelines.
Image / Getty
Musk, who earlier said he was willing to “go to war” to build a Tesla phone to circumvent a ban, said it was a “Good conversation ... we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store.”
Musk has slashed content moderation and policy teams as he has sought to cut costs and give Twitter what he calls a “town hall” feel.
Earlier this week, Musk announced a “general amnesty” for all suspended accounts, “provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam”.
Following a poll approving the measure, he announced the amnesty would begin next week.
“Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the Covid-19 misleading information policy.”
According to Twitter’s own stats, the social media platform has “challenged” 11.72 million accounts, suspended 11,320 accounts and removed 97,674 accounts since January 2020 for spreading misinformation about the virus or vaccines.
This is because (according to a September 2022 Twitter transparency report): “People continue to turn to Twitter to discuss what’s happening and find the latest authoritative public health information. As such, we continue to prioritise removing or annotating potentially harmful and misleading information to ensure that users can readily find credible information.”
Twitter's Covid policy.
Musk had already restored accounts for controversial figures including former President Donald Trump (who, now posting to his own Truth Social, has yet to tweet) and far-right conspiracy theorist Majorie Taylor Greene, who was banned in January this year for violating Twitter’s Covid misinformation policies (Taylor Greene has resumed posting).
And Kanye West is now back on Twitter after his account was briefly locked following a series of anti-Semitic posts.
On November 6, the Australian Government’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, told the Herald she feared Twitter’s cull of its health and safety team, plus “major cuts” to the policy team that deals with Government agencies in Australia and New Zealand, would lead to a rise in misinformation and harmful content.
Fun level on Twitter has definitely increased! I’m having a great time tbh.
Inman Grant’s fears appeared to be realised with reports last week Twitter failed to detect a copy of the banned Christchurch mosque gunman’s video, which is banned in New Zealand, and did not remove it until after the NZ Government lodged a complaint.
Then there was an account from Victoria University’s Prof Markus Luczak-Roesch, who wrote: “The entire team the New Zealand Government was planning to work with [on the Christchurch Call] disappeared. And it’s unlikely any work outlined in September will actually eventuate.”
Advertisers raise brand safety, bug concerns
The Financial Times reported on November 27 that Twitter’s $5 billion-per-year advertising business had “tensions over content moderation and resources”.
Multiple top advertising agencies and media buyers told the Financial Times nearly all of the big brands they represent have paused spending on the social media platform, citing alarm at Musk’s ad hoc approach to policing content - although the inability to locate sales contacts after layoffs, and Twitter’s ad systems becoming buggy, were also factors.
The bugs were making it difficult or even impossible to run campaigns.
“It is quite unique. The turmoil, the damage, nothing of this magnitude has happened before. Never,” said a senior executive at a big four advertising agency.
Hate speech impressions down by 1/3 from pre-spike levels. Congrats to Twitter team! pic.twitter.com/5BWaQoIlip
In a November 24 tweet, Musk posted a graph showing a spike in hate speech after he took over the site, but also a drop to “1/3 pre-spike levels”. The new owner did not detail any of the methodologies behind the chart.
“Fun level on Twitter has definitely increased! I’m having a great time tbh,” he said in the same thread.
Meanwhile, rivals Meta and Google have both recently showcased expanded efforts to moderate content.
