Elon Musk, spent last week threatening to sue the Anti-Defamation League over its claims he has failed to tackle antisemitism on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. Now, a new report from the Center For Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) claims X is failing to remove neo-Nazi, antisemitic, and racist posts despite being aware of the hateful content.
Researchers from the CCDH, a disinformation watchdog that Musk is currently suing, identified 300 tweets, from 100 different accounts, that they say violate X’s own hate speech policies. The researchers reported the tweets through formal channels and then checked a week later to see what action had been taken. They found that 86 percent of the posts were still up and 90 of the accounts were still active.
In a statement posted on X on Tuesday, the company's Safety Team hit back, claiming the CCDH's report contained “false claims,” and that “violative posts” had been removed. They also said the report overestimated the number of people exposed to the tweets by counting the total number of followers of each account, rather than the “impressions” of each post.
“We will continue to protect free expression and simultaneously keep our platform safe for users. We have strong content moderation policies and enforcement in place to monitor the ~500 million posts that are created each day on X,” the statement says, “We either remove content that violates our policies or label and restrict the reach of certain posts.”
The report comes only days after X’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino responded to accusations of unchecked antisemitism on the platform by saying she “strongly believe(s) that groups like the ADL and CCDH consistently misrepresent our progress.”
Imran Ahmed, the CEO and founder of CCDH, told The Daily Beast that the new report was a “test” of Yaccarino’s claims to advertisers that the company is “committed” to tackling antisemitism.
“We’ve been quietly listening to Musk continuing to shit-talk us, to Linda Yaccarino saying she is fixing the problems that they previously said were trumped up charges from CCDH and the ADL,” Ahmed said. “When you tolerate and monetize antisemitism, why is [Musk] so surprised that people make accusations of antisemitism against the way the platform is run?"
Data shared with The Daily Beast showed the CCDH reported more than 40 neo-Nazi tweets, many of which included Holocaust denial, mocking Holocaust victims, praise for Hitler or racist caricatures of Jewish people. Only 12 of these neo-Nazi posts were removed by X. One post that labeled Hitler as “a hero who will help secure a future for white children!” was not removed, the report says.
The CCDH also identified 140 antisemitic tweets that included conspiracy theories about Jewish people running the world and calls for them to be deported. They found that 85 percent of these antisemitic tweets had not been removed by X. In total, the 100 accounts highlighted by the CCDH’s report have over a million followers. Only ten of the accounts were removed after they were reported.
The report also identified 38 ads from major advertisers like Disney and Apple, which were placed next to posts containing hate speech. Only last month, X issued new safety measures for advertisers, including an enhanced “blocklist” that apparently prevents ads being placed next to “unsafe keywords.”
The CCDH’s new research comes as Musk has threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League for defaming him and ban the group from X over its accusations that he has been too lax on anti-semitism on the platform. Musk blamed the ADL’s statements for a 60 percent drop in advertising revenue on the platform, tweeting on September 4 that “since the acquisition, the ADL has been trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic.”
Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” filed suit against the watchdog in August, accusing them of embarking on a “scare campaign to drive away advertisers from the X platform.”
“Despite our continued progress, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and its backers have been actively working to assert false and misleading claims about X and actively working to prevent public dialogue,” the suit claims, asserting the CCDH cherry-picks data from the site and makes false claims.
Ahmed denied that the group misrepresents X’s progress combating hate speech, saying the reason the CCDH irritates Musk so much is simple.
“We just check and see if they’re telling the truth when they make claims,” Ahmed told The Daily Beast. “This is a guy who believes there should be no consequence for hatred or this kind of racism on his website.”
Yet if someone criticizes Musk, Ahmed adds, the billionaire tries to “destroy them with lawfare.” He estimates that it will cost half a million dollars for CCDH to defend itself from Musk’s suit, most of which the nonprofit will need to raise from donations.
