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X Launches Legal Action Over Claims that Hate Speech is Rising in the App

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X Launches Legal Action Over Claims that Hate Speech is Rising in the App

X Corp’s looking to fight back against claims that instances of hate speech have increased across the platform since Elon Musk purchased the app, by suing The Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) over various reports published by the group that track the rise of harmful content.

The CCDH has published several reports in which it claims to have tracked the rise of hate speech in the app since Musk’s purchase of the platform. Back in December, the group reported that slurs against Black and transgender people had significantly increased after Musk took over at the app, while its research also suggests that Twitter is not enforcing rule-breaking tweets posted by Twitter Blue subscribers, while it’s also allowing tweets that reference the LGBTQ+ community alongside ‘grooming’ slurs to remain active.

Some of this seemingly aligns with the app’s new ‘Freedom of Speech, Not Reach’ approach, which sees the X team now leaning more towards leaving tweets up, as opposed to removing them. But even so, X is now looking to counter the CCDH’s claims in court, as Musk seeks to uncover who’s behind the group.

As per the CCDH:

“Last week we got a letter from Elon Musk’s X. Corp threatening CCDH with legal action over our work, exposing the proliferation of hate and lies on Twitter since he became the owner. Elon Musk’s actions represent a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research in the desperate hope that he can stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild his relationship with advertisers.

That does indeed seem to be the key motivation here, countering highly publicized claims that the platform is now less brand-safe than it has been in the past, in the hopes of reassuring ad partners.

But there is also some validity to X disputes, with Meta also previously criticizing the CCDH’s findings as being limited in scope, and therefore not indicative of its overall performance in mitigating hate speech.

Which is an inevitable limitation of any third-party assessment. Outside groups can only access a certain amount of posts and examples, so any such review will only be relative to the content that they choose to include in their study pool. In the cases of both Meta and X, the companies have claimed that the CCDH reports are too limited to be indicative, and therefore any conclusions that they make should not be considered valid as examples of their broader performance.

But that hasn’t stopped such reports from gaining widespread media coverage, which has likely had an impact on X’s business. The more reports of hate speech and harmful content, the more brand partners will be hesitant to advertise in the app, which is what Musk and his legal team are now looking to fight back against by taking the group to court.

In response, the CCDH has vowed to stand by its claims, labeling the letter from Musk’s lawyers ‘a disturbing effort to intimidate those who have the courage to advocate against incitement, hate speech and harmful content online’. The CCDH has also countered that Musk has deliberately sought to restrict outside research, by changing the rules around third-party data access, and as such, there’s no way to conduct a full-scale analysis of the platform’s content, which would be in line with the expectation set out in the letter.

Musk and his X team have increased the cost of API access at the platform, including for academic groups, which does indeed restrict such analysis, pretty much stamping it out completely in most cases, which means that the only true source of insight in this respect would be the data that X produces itself.

On that front, Musk and the X team have repeatedly claimed that hate speech impressions are way down since Musk took over at the app, with its most recent claim on this front being:

As we’ve reported previously, that’s an unbelievably high number, but Musk and his team are seeking to combat any counter claims, despite producing no data to support such statements, in the hopes of mitigating advertiser concerns.

Which, really, X could do. Musk and his team could publish a detailed report on hate speech which clearly details their actual enforcement actions, and how this 99.99% figure was established. That would be the most definitive counter to the CCDH claims, but that also seems unlikely to happen.

Because there’s no way that 99.99% of tweet impressions are from ‘healthy content’.

Part of the argument here lies in how the X team is interpreting such comments and mentions, with the X team and their assessment partners changing the definitions around what qualifies as hate speech.

For example, X’s assessment partner Sprinklr has previously outlined how its systems now take a more nuanced approach to assessing hate speech, by analyzing the context within which identified hate terms are used, as opposed to just tallying mentions.

As per Sprinklr:

Sprinklr’s toxicity model analyzes data and categorizes content as ‘toxic’ if it’s used to demean an individual, attack a protected category or dehumanize marginalized groups. Integrating factors such as reclaimed language and context allowed our model to eliminate false positives and negatives as well.”

In other words, many times, hate speech terms are not used in a hateful way, and Sprinklr’s assessment processes are now more attuned to this.

Based on this, back in March, Sprinklr found that 86% of X posts that included hate speech terms were not actually considered harmful or intended to cause harm.

Which, again, is an incredibly high number. Based on a list of 300 English-language slur terms, this assessment suggests that 86% of the time, these terms are not used in a negative or harmful way.

That seems like it can’t be right, but again, the actual data hasn’t been provided, so there’s no way to counter such claims.

Which seems to be what X is pushing for, to combat outside assessment, without providing its own counter insights, other than via basic overviews, and the hope that people will simply take the company at its word.

Worth noting too that it’s not just the CCDH that’s reported an increase in hate speech in the app since Musk took over, but Musk looks to be taking aim at the CCDH specifically, based on who’s funding the group and suspicion about their aims.

But again, X could counter this by producing its own data, which it claims to have. The above figures came from somewhere, why not produce the full report which led to this overview and show, in detail, the counter claims?

It seems like a simple counter to refute such claims, as opposed to heading to court. Which lends credibility to the CCDH’s claims that this is an attempt to intimidate, as opposed to clarify.



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TikTok spends $1.5B on Tokopedia JV to get around Jakarta social e-commerce ban

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TikTok spends $1.5B on Tokopedia JV to get around Jakarta social e-commerce ban

Just two months ago, ByteDance-owned TikTok abruptly closed its shopping platform in Indonesia to comply with surprise regulations from the Southeast Asian country’s government. Jakarta ordered social media companies like TikTok and Facebook to stop selling goods on their platforms, demanding a separation of social media and e-commerce services.

TikTok now seems to have found a way to revive its e-commerce dreams in Indonesia by spending billions to start a joint venture with Indonesian tech giant GoTo. On Monday, the two companies announced that TikTok Shop will now be available on GoTo’s Tokopedia platform.

“Tokopedia and TikTok Shop Indonesia’s businesses will be combined under the existing PT Tokopedia entity in which TikTok will take a controlling stake. The shopping features within the TikTok app in Indonesia will be operated and maintained by the enlarged entity,” TikTok said in a statement Monday.

TikTok will invest over $1.5 billion into Tokopedia, taking a 75% stake in the platform. GoTo will remain an ecosystem partner to Tokopedia and receive an “ongoing revenue stream from Tokopedia commensurate with its scale and growth,” but will not be required to continue funding the platform. Further funding from TikTok also won’t reduce GoTo’s remaining 25% stake.

Getting back into the Indonesian ecommerce market will be a win for TikTok. Indonesia, which is the platform’s largest market outside of the U.S., is key to Tiktok’s online shopping aspirations. In June, CEO Shou Zi Chew pledged to “invest billions in Indonesia and Southeast Asia over the next few years.”

ByteDance wants to replicate its Chinese e-commerce successaround the globe. Last year, consumers spent in China 1.41 trillion yuan ($196 billion) on products sold on Douyin, the version of TikTok for the Chinese market, The Information reported in January. ByteDance, through TikTok, is expanding its online shopping services in both Southeast Asia and the U.S. Yet the company is struggling to win over American consumers: The Information reported in August that U.S. shoppers are spending just $4 million a day, equivalent to $1.4 billion over a whole year, on goods sold on the social media platform. (TikTok officially launched TikTok Shop in the U.S. in September, though sellers have complained about a flood of low-quality products on the platform).

Before Indonesia imposed its ban in September, the country’s president, Joko Widodo, complained that social media platforms were threatening local micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises. Government officials also accused TikTok of engaging in predatory pricing.

GoTo’s deal with TikTok means the Indonesian tech giant is giving up its majority ownership of Tokopedia . Tokopedia started in 2008 and grew to be one of Indonesia’s largest e-commerce platforms. The company merged with ride-hailing startup GoJek in 2021, becoming GoTo Group. The company debuted on Jakarta’s stock exchange in April last year.

Yet the company has struggled to wow investors since then. GoTo has yet to make a profit since becoming a public company. The tech firm reported 2.4 trillion Indonesian rupiah ($147 million) in net losses last quarter, significantly less than the 6.7 trillion rupiah ($428 million) it lost this time last year.

Investors do not appear to be thrilled by the news of GoTo’s TikTok partnership. Shares fell by over 19% by 2:30pm Indonesia time on Monday, erasing gains made late last week as rumors began to build of the new partnership.

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How to Train ChatGPT to Write in Your Brand’s Tone of Voice [Infographic]

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How to Train ChatGPT to Write in Your Brand’s Tone of Voice [Infographic]

Are you looking for ways to improve your ChatGPT output? Want to train it to write in a more unique tone of voice, in order to better suit your branding?

The Creative Marketer shares his ChatGPT prompt tips in this infographic. To enact these, add “Write like [INSERT CHARACTER]” at the start of your ChatGPT instructions.

TCM breaks things down into the following categories:

  • Innocent
  • Sage
  • Explorer
  • Ruler
  • Creator
  • Caregiver
  • Lover
  • Hero
  • Everyman
  • Magician
  • Jester
  • Outlaw

Check out the infographic for more information.

A version of this post was first published on the Red Website Design blog.

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Elon Musk reinstates far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on X

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Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been reinstated on X, formerly known as Twitter, by company owner Elon Musk

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been reinstated on X, formerly known as Twitter, by company owner Elon Musk – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File Joe Buglewicz

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, on Sunday reinstated far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on the social media platform, a year after vowing never to let him return.

Jones, who claimed that a December 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that killed 20 children and six educators was a hoax, was banned from the platform — then still known as Twitter — in 2018 for violating its “abusive behavior policy.”

He was also sued by families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting and ordered by a judge in the case to pay up more than a billion dollars in damages last year.

Musk had himself promised never to let the Infowars host back on the social media platform, which he bought last year for $44 billion.

But following a poll Musk conducted on X asking whether Jones should be reinstated, to which some two million users responded, he flipped that decision.

“I vehemently disagree with what he said about Sandy Hook, but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not?” the SpaceX founder said on X.

But Shannon Watts, founder of the group Moms Demand Action group which pushes for tighter gun laws, said that “defamation is not free speech.”

Musk’s decision comes the same week that the Sandy Hook families commemorate the 11th anniversary of the December 14 shooting, which Jones alleged was staged to allow the government to crack down on gun rights.

Jones’ followers harassed the bereaved families for years, accusing parents of murdered children of being “crisis actors” whose children had never existed.

It also came a week after Musk had responded to advertisers pulling out of X because of far-right posts and hate speech, including an apparent endorsement by Musk himself of an anti-Semitic tweet.

Asked whether he would respond to the advertising exodus, Musk said in an interview with journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin that the advertisers could “go f*** yourself.”

Jones, who has a million followers on X, returned to the site with his first post re-tweeting Andrew Tate, the controversial former kickboxer facing rape and human trafficking charges in Romania, in which he hailed Jones’ “triumphant return”

US media reported that as of Sunday, the account of Jones’ controversial show Infowars was still banned.

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