Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
Twitter is failing to remove 99 percent of hate speech posted by Twitter Blue users, new research has found, and instead may be boosting paid accounts that spew racism and homophobia.
Researchers at the Center For Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) flagged hate speech to the company in tweets from 100 Twitter Blue subscribers. Four days later, they say, 99 percent of the tweets were still up and none of the accounts had been removed.
The tweets, which included examples of neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism, racism, and homophobia, violate Twitter’s own hate speech policies, the researchers say. The tweets reported by the CCDH included a post claiming “Hitler was right,” accompanied by a video montage of the dictator, and another saying LGBT activists needed “IRON IN THEIR DIET. Preferably from a #AFiringSquad.”