47 organizations from the fields of environment, health, agriculture, human rights and social affairs are protesting against hate speech on the text messaging service. Then they want to stop their activities on Twitter, which has been renamed by new owner Elon Musk. With this, Terre des Hommes, Germanwatch, Kindernothilfe and others want to “set an example for a democratic and respectful debate culture” on the occasion of today’s International Day for Combating Hate Speech declared by the United Nations. As stated in a joint statement,
Advertisement
Organizations do not want to delete their accounts, but rather close them. Otherwise there is a risk that their profiles will be hijacked. Some organizations have already closed their X accounts or deliberately reduced their activity there in the last few months. They will be active on X again only when the moderation practices and debate culture there are re-aligned with democratic rules, as they said.
Extremists unlocked again
Violent, discriminatory and misinformed content has grown rapidly on the service since Musk took over Twitter in October 2022. The organizations wrote that Musk has treated moderation as equivalent to censorship and has therefore reduced it substantially; accounts already blocked due to the spread of extremist content have been reactivated. Hate, agitation, calls for violence and disinformation have now become part of everyday behavior
Recommended editorial content
With your consent, an external survey (Opinary GmbH) will be loaded here.
Always load surveys
Initiative GoodbyeElon A survey from February this year is cited in which respondents said they have already witnessed hate online. About one in eight people have already been affected by it themselves. A study conducted in early 2023 showed that hate speech in tweets often occurs before or after actual attacks.
International Day for Combatting Hate Speech observed on UN action plan to combat hate speech (PDF), which they presented in June 2019. The first day took place two years ago. “Hate slogans are a hallmark of discrimination, abuse, violence, conflict and, in some circumstances, crimes against humanity. This has been demonstrated repeatedly throughout history, including in National Socialist Germany, Rwanda and Bosnia.” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently said,
(Application)
