Social Media
Musk’s Twitter Roils With Hate Speech as Trolls Test New Limits
Hateful and racist rhetoric swelled on the network as some politicians rejoiced. ‘Free speech. Liberal tears.’
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In the wake of Elon Musk buying Twitter Inc., a tide of slurs and racist memes swelled on the platform, sparking concern that the site is entering an era of hateful speech.
Twitter has long wrestled with how to enforce content policies fairly on its platform in order to appease the advertisers, users and powerful world leaders that use its service. But as Musk, a self-styled “free speech absolutist,” took over ownership of the company, some conservative officials, partisan extremists and conspiracy peddlers saw reason to celebrate the change.