Last weekend, shortly after the takeover by Elon Musk, Twitter was hit by a coordinated trolling campaign (we talked about it here). Yoel Rothchief of security for the platform, explained that the attack was intended to spread the false news that Twitter would have weakened its guidelines on content.
The social network was then flooded with hateful content. Today Roth himself stated that Twitter has taken countermeasures, blocking over 1,500 accounts involved in the campaign.
Yoel Roth: “We blocked 1,500 Twitter accounts linked to the trolling campaign”
Roth, through a series of tweets, explained that many of the 1,500 blocked accounts were actually bots, not dating back to real people. The executive also said that Twitter has managed to limit the dissemination of content deemed to incite hatred by reducing itsimpression. The latter is the data by which the popularity of a post is measured.
Since Saturday, we’ve been focused on addressing the surge in hateful conduct on Twitter. We’ve made measurable progress, removing more than 1500 accounts and reducing impressions on this content to nearly zero. Here’s the latest on our work, and what’s next.
— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) October 31, 2022
The security officer then explained that the company will not tolerate further violent or hateful content. Despite this, a recent Bloomberg report raises important doubts regarding Twitter’s moderation staff. According to the newspaper, the platform would have prevented most employees from accessing internal tools for content moderation.
Concerns grow as we approach the date of November 8, when the mid-term elections will be held in the United States.
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