Purge to the rescue.
X, formerly Twitter, is going after its bot and trolling problems, per the company’s owner Elon Musk.
“System purge of bots & trolls underway. Please reply to me or @XEng if legitimate accounts are suspended,” Musk posted. “X Corp will be tracing the people responsible and bringing the full force of the law to bear upon them.”
X has faced user and advertiser pushback amid ongoing concerns about content moderation as well as the spread of misinformation and hate speech on the platform, which some researchers say has been on the rise under Musk.
Big-name brands including IBM, NBCUniversal and its parent company Comcast, in November said they would stop advertising on X after a report from liberal advocacy group Media Matters showed their ads appearing alongside material that praised Nazis. Marking yet another setback as X tries to win back ad dollars, the platform’s main source of revenue, Musk responded with an expletive-ridden rant accusing the companies of “blackmail” and essentially told them to go away.
X has since also attempted to sue those who have documented the proliferation of hate speech and racism on the platform — including Media Matters and the non-profit Center for Countering Digital Hate. A federal judge dismissed the suit against the center last week.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MatthewArco.
