Twitter’s Safety Chief Speaks Out After Elon Musk’s Takeover

The company’s Head of Safety & Integrity, Yoel Roth, recently tweeted a lengthy thread addressing the increased use of slurs and “hateful conduct” following Musk’s takeover. The company believes the increase in slurs, harassment, and other disorderly conduct is an “organized effort” to make people believe the way Twitter deals with such conduct has changed. Roth stated, “More than 50,000 Tweets repeatedly using a particular slur came from just 300 accounts.” He described the majority of those accounts as inauthentic and says the company is taking action against those responsible for the alleged trolling campaign.

It was this thread that Musk tweeted in response to LeBron James, and he seemingly did so to illustrate that neither he nor his new company was responsible for the actions of those users. Musk himself has also tweeted, explicitly stating that no rules have been changed yet, and Twitter’s terms of service remain as they were before the takeover. The actual rules that are still in place are fairly complex. Roth himself confirmed that there isn’t a list of words that are banned on the platform, and the context words are used in is considered when assessing complaints.

A specific example Roth uses is the idea of “reclaimed speech,” which is when a group takes a slur that has been used negatively against it and repurposes its meaning for use within the group itself. Reclaimed speech is somewhat common, but remains controversial even within marginalized groups. Some people are still uncomfortable with a slur being used, even if one of the victims is using the slur after “reclaiming it” for the group. A recent example of this kind of controversy revolves around the use of the word “queer” within the gay community (via NPR).