wp-plugin-hostgator domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114ol-scrapes domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114Source: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/5\/16\/23076428\/buffalo-shooting-video-elon-musk-twitter-content-moderation<\/a> On May 14th, social media platforms found themselves scrambling to deal with a livestream video of a white supremacist terror attack. Yet the man who has been the nation\u2019s loudest commentator on content moderation had nothing to say.<\/p>\n Under Elon Musk\u2019s view of content moderation<\/a>, any restriction on speech beyond what the law proscribes is censorship. And by that standard, the video of the attack in Buffalo \u2014 however graphic \u2014 should have remained on the platform since videos of graphic violence are not illegal speech. In practice, platforms were criticized for being too slow to remove them, and Musk found no need to weigh in on the debate.<\/p>\n The details of the Buffalo, New York shooting are widely known and still painful to report. Ten people were killed on a Saturday afternoon in a supermarket that was a mainstay for residents of Buffalo\u2019s predominantly Black East Side<\/a>. A gunman livestreamed the murderous violence on Twitch and planned to inflict yet more<\/a> before being stopped by police.<\/p>\n The Buffalo gunman was, beyond doubt, radicalized online. He cited the Christchurch mass shooter<\/a> as an inspiration, copying large parts<\/a> of the New Zealand terrorist\u2019s manifesto into one of his own. He was motivated by the \u201cgreat replacement\u201d theory, which holds that white people are being intentionally dispossessed from their positions of power through immigration and interracial marriage. He wrote that he had learned of the theory through 4chan, the online message board that spawned QAnon and has been linked to many other acts of white supremacist terrorism<\/a>.<\/p>\n He was also, without doubt, drawing from a playbook of mass shooters who engineer their massacres to spread on social media<\/a> and hope to exploit the viral power of extreme, graphic violence to amplify a message of hate. And while the original Twitch stream was removed in a matter of minutes, on other platforms, the video circulated much more widely and for longer<\/a>.<\/p>\n And as America reeled from the news, Elon Musk remained silent \u2014 despite Tesla\u2019s sizable presence in Buffalo<\/a>. While Twitter \u2014 the company whose moderation policy he has relentlessly critiqued in the lead up to and aftermath of his acquisition deal<\/a> \u2014 was forced to make real-time decisions over whether videos of the shooting should be allowed to circulate<\/a> or if links to a terrorist manifesto violated content policies, its aspirational owner refrained from comment.<\/p>\n Perhaps his focus has been elsewhere, a sympathetic reader might say. True, with stock markets wobbling, Tesla stocks down, and the Twitter acquisition deal \u201con hold,\u201d<\/a> there is a lot that could distract his attention. If he had stopped tweeting entirely over the weekend, it would be fair to suggest that he was occupied elsewhere.<\/p>\n In reality, within hours of the shooting, Musk had posted a number of tweets, some of them even touching on content moderation. Approximately five hours after the shooting took place, he explained to users how they could access the chronological feed to avoid being \u201cmanipulated by the algorithm<\/a>.\u201d Later on in the evening, he found time to share a newsletter from Matt Taibbi on corporate regulation in California, some images of a recent Space X launch, and a royal portrait of King Louis XIV of France. The next day, he revisited the thread on chronological ordering with a tweet about the importance of open-source code. On Monday, he found enough time to troll Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal<\/a> in a conversation about spam. But watchers looking for any comment on Buffalo found nothing.<\/p>\n Been hitting refresh all day waiting for Elon\u2019s take on the Buffalo shooter\u2019s manifesto and video being shared on Twitter. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.<\/p>\n \u2014 Dare Obasanjo (@Carnage4Life) May 15, 2022<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Would Elon Musk have ordered videos of the shooting to be removed? So far, he has given no answers because there is no answer that can satisfy both a common understanding of moral decency and his stated position on moderation and free speech<\/a>. A video showing graphic violence is not in itself illegal, and the Buffalo shooter\u2019s video will certainly be shared by police departments, government agencies, and other organizations investigating the crime. But for millions of social media users to view and share a video of a massacre for their own morbid curiosity is unconscionable, and every platform will have content policies that rightly block or heavily restrict it.<\/p>\n Because he has failed \u2014 at least publicly \u2014 to engage with any of the numerous content moderation researchers who study violent and extremist content, Musk has shown no nuanced understanding of the range of speech that is legal but dangerous or that there is any difference between content we should ban outright and content that we should consider limiting from being broadcast on a giant, globe-spanning distribution platform.<\/p>\n Now is a time for that discussion. In a moment when the national conversation is focused on this act of terrorism, Elon Musk has a chance to plant his flag in the ground: to commit to his vision of laissez-faire content moderation and accept the consequences or recognize that there are limits. <\/p>\n Instead, the free speech advocate has become strangely mute.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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