Since Elon Musk took over the company of Social Media Platform X (formerly referred to as twitter) many have wondered what would change. It just released its first transparency report ever. Spoiler alert: Quiet humming and buzzing behind the scenes things have been!
A Clean-Up of Epic Proportions
X claimed in this report that the company has had to abandon approximately 5.3 million registered users for the first half of this year only. That means the equivalent of discarding 98 percent of the population of Finland. That’s a sharp rise from the previous year when, ‘just’ 1.6 million accounts were suspended.
A Flood of Content Warnings
X has also been sparing no effort in tagging and banning more than 106,100,000 posts for violating the house rules. Of these a total of 5 million posts were reported under the new ‘hateful conduct’ policy.
But wait, there’s more. Of these marked posts, 2.2 million contained violence, and 2.6 million were marked as abuse and harassment. This is where X is trying to exercise paranoia and ensure safety.
The Duo Behind All These: Machines and Humans
You may be asking yourself right about now how this is all being managed. Well, X is employing a combination of human and mechanical character. Programmed systems are the proactive front-line that come in to either handle or bypass content and/or notify moderator personnel to take a look. Depending on the results, they employ the human group to resolve the final decision.
The report states that only about 1% of the posts shared on the platform at the time were violations of the rules. But even that may sound like a small fraction; do not forget that X social media platform is a giant.
Why Does This Matter?
Nonetheless you may be wondering why any of this is relevant. We have to stress the importance of receiving transparency reports because they open a window. This way we get to see what the platform is doing to prevent things from escalating out of control. Well, after all, nobody will want to spend time in a party where there is confusion will they?
This is what X is telling the public by coming up with this report: “Hey, we are aware of this issue, and we are handling it”. We have our structures set and are doing everything possible to ensure that this environment is safe and enjoyable for all.” Whether or not these guys are doing a good job is something which users will decide over time, but this is reassuring to know some effort is being made in the background.
Wrapping It Up
Therefore, what can we infer from the first transparency report on Social Media Platform X? Some things have tightened since Elon Musk took over their leadership role. People and machines are policing the platforms more than before, and there are more account suspensions, and more posts are being tagged.
All as users can do is wait and hope that the equilibrium between freedom of speech and platform rules becomes even better. Because, nobody enjoys being shown the door, but at the same time the mood has to remain upbeat. Here’s to hoping X stays up to par in moderation.
