Elon Musk's Twitter takeover has already emboldened trolls

It's been less than a day since Elon Musk began his takeover of Twitter, but his time at the helm of the company is already having an impact on the platform. Following news that the deal had been completed and that it had begun purging some members of the company's management, some groups opted to test Twitter's moderation rules.

The Washington Post also reported that "rapid slurs were published overnight," in the hours immediately following Musk's takeover. The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a nonprofit that studies misinformation on social platforms, said Friday morning that it has seen a surge in the n-word on Twitter.

"Evidence suggests that bad actors are trying to test the limits of @Twitter," the group said. "Several posts on 4chan encourage users to amplify derogatory slurs."

A Twitter spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. As both The Post and NCRI point out, much of this appears to be taking place on platforms like 4Chan and TheDonald, where users encourage each other to spread hate.

At this time, the extent of these efforts is unclear. As with previous harassment campaigns, a small group of trolls can have an outsized impact, especially at a time of business upheaval. Musk, who Bloomberg says has temporarily taken over as the company's CEO, said Friday he would not reinstate any banned accounts or make "major" changes to the company's content policies. the company until it can for a “Content Moderation Board with Widely Diverse Views.”

He also replied to a Twitter account called Catturd, which had complained about shadowbans and loss of followers, that he would "dig deeper". Musk has previously said he wants to remove permanent bans on the platform and would "err on the edge, if in doubt, let the speech exist".

Notably, the rise in racial slurs comes a day after Musk appealed to Twitter advertisers, saying he didn't want to turn the platform into a "hellscape where anything can be said without consequences."

But the rise in hate speech has further fueled concerns that Twitter's years-long effort to clean up its platforms could be undone under Musk. He has already fired the company's chief policy officer, Vijaya Gadde, who played a central role in crafting the company's content rules. That's concerning, says Paul Barrett, deputy director of NYU's Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.

"The danger here is that in the name of 'free speech,' Musk will go back and make Twitter a more powerful engine of hate, division and disinformation about elections, health policy public and international affairs," Barrett said in a statement. "It's not going to be pretty."

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