Musk’s Twitter Takeover and Information Cascades
When Elon Musk officially took over Twitter this past week, racist tweets quickly surfaced. In fact, “use of the n-word on the app spiked nearly 500 percent over the 12 hours after Musk’s deal was finalized.” (Harwell). In addition, “misogynistic and anti-LGBTQ messages had become increasingly prominent, including from accounts calling for the harassment and misnaming of transgender people” (Harwell). Musk’s takeover encouraged users to harass others, which in turn lead to other users also thinking that unleashing racial slurs and attacking minorities was okay. This is an example of information cascading, as once one user decided to attack others, others were more likely to go along with the crowd and do the same.
Specifically, the harassment-filled information cascading on Twitter worked like this: the world of “Twitter” was placed in a state where Elon Musk took over the company. Users received the signal that they could say whatever they wanted due to Musk’s “portrayal of himself as a “free speech absolutist” ” (Harwell). These users then decided to tweet harassment tweets in response, causing other users to also tweet harassment tweets as there was a wave of others doing so. These users likely ignored any other effects of what they were tweeting, such as real-life punishments and the people they were actually hurting, as they were caught up in the moment. If these users didn’t see others tweeting racial slurs, it’s likely that there would be a significantly less amount of these slurs as people wouldn’t necessarily feel protected or safe tweeting such harmful things.
As Harwell states in his article, Musk’s Twitter takeover “seemed to have encouraged a wide range of anonymous Twitter accounts to act as if his takeover meant the old rules against bigotry no longer applied.” (Harwell). However, it’s likely that if someone less polarizing than Musk were to take over Twitter, or if the takeover never happened, these tweets would either be deleted or never tweeted in the first place. Twitter is truly a hub of information cascades, which is also why it’s a primary spot for moral outrage to take place. Many political movements have been fostered over Twitter as a result. While Musk’s Twitter takeover seems quite dark for the future, it’s still possible for users to utilize the power of information cascading to fight against the harassment and stand up for the targeted groups, since, as demonstrated by the abundance of hate tweets, information cascading is quite powerful and prominent on Twitter.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/28/musk-twitter-racist-posts/