Twitter data taken after Elon Musk completed his deal to take over the social media platform indicates the use of the n-word has increased by nearly 500 percent.
Musk officially became the owner of Twitter on Thursday, 27 October, months after he first announced his plans to buy the site in a $44 billion deal.
His new ownership has been met with mixed responses by users, some of who are happy to have Musk in charge while others declared they would close their accounts if the SpaceX founder took over.
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After taking charge, Musk announced he would be forming a 'content moderation council' which would bring together 'diverse views'.
"No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before the council convenes,” he wrote on the platform.
Musk has touted himself as a strong believer in free speech, but some users now appear to be trying to test his boundaries by increasing their use of controversial, offensive and explicit language on the platform.
The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), which describes itself as a 'neutral and independent third party whose mission it is to track, expose, and combat disinformation and deception across social media', has been monitoring the impacts of Musk's takeover and found evidence which suggests 'bad actors are trying to test the limits on @Twitter'.
"Several posts on 4chan encourage users to amplify derogatory slurs," the body explained.
Over the course of 12 hours following Musk's takeover, the NCRI found that the use of the n-word had increased nearly 500 percent when compared to the previous average.
Having previously appeared to vary somewhere between 400 and 500 usages per day, usage shot up to more than 1500 as Musk's takeover was confirmed.
Concerns over the impacts of Musk's takeover include whether he will reinstate the account of Donald Trump, who was banned from the platform following the 6 January Capitol attack. Kanye West, who was recently locked out of his account for making anti-Semitic comments, has recently returned to the site, though Musk claims he was not involved in that decision.
Bridget Todd, communications director at UltraViolet, a leading national gender equity and anti-disinformation organisation, condemned Musk's plans for the takeover in a press release shared on the day he took charge.
Todd commented: "At a time where violent threats, hate speech, and disinformation are continuing to spread rapidly across social media platforms, despite their best efforts to state the contrary with bogus ads, it’s clear that billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg are just getting started. Musk has commented on the record that he does not believe any Twitter posts, however factually inaccurate, violent or inflammatory, should be prohibited on Twitter, so long as they are ‘legal'. His acquisition of Twitter just opened Pandora’s box.
“By purchasing Twitter, Elon Musk is poised to reopen the floodgates of widespread harassment and threats of violence, especially against Black women, women of color, and transgender people."
Todd went on to express belief that Musk will 'abandon Twitter’s community standards', describing this move as a 'massively slippery slope that could set a dangerous precedent for other social media platforms to follow suit'.
UNILAD has contacted Twitter for comment.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article and wish to speak to someone in confidence, contact Stop Hate UK by visiting their website www.stophateuk.org
The UNILAD Team