Shillong, June 22: Australia’s cyber regulator has served a legal notice to Twitter, which is led by Elon Musk, demanding information about the social media platform’s efforts to address online hate. Failure to respond within 28 days could result in substantial financial penalties of up to nearly $700,000 per day for ongoing violations.
Julie Inman Grant, the Australian eSafety Commissioner, expressed concern over the increasing number of complaints regarding hateful content remaining visible on Twitter despite the company’s existing terms of use and policies prohibiting such conduct. Grant stated that eSafety research indicates that nearly 1 in 5 Australians has encountered some form of online hate, and marginalized groups, including First Nations Australians, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ+ community, experience online hate at twice the rate of the general population.
Over the past year, eSafety Commissioner received more complaints about online hate on Twitter than any other platform, and reports of severe online abuse have risen since Musk’s takeover of the company in October 2022. This increase in complaints aligns with Twitter’s significant reduction in its global workforce from 8,000 employees to 1,500, including in its trust and safety teams, and the cessation of its public policy presence in Australia.
Grant criticized Twitter’s handling of hate speech, highlighting that a third of all complaints received by eSafety pertain to hate on Twitter. There are also reports that the reinstatement of previously banned accounts has empowered extremist individuals, including neo-Nazis, both in Australia and abroad.
Twitter has faced criticism from various sources, including US advocacy group GLAAD, which designated it as the most hateful platform towards the LGBTQ+ community in a recent social media index. Research by the UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) revealed that racial slurs targeting African Americans appeared on Twitter an average of 1,282 times per day before Musk’s involvement. Afterward, the frequency more than doubled to an average of 3,876 times per day.
The CCDH’s findings also indicate that Twitter’s enforcement of rules against online hate seemed lenient towards users with a Twitter Blue Check, granting them a certain level of impunity.