Nov 15, 2022
Elon Musk’s Twitter Acquisition Draws Fringe Reactions
Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover has garnered positive reactions on fringe media, raising questions about social media safety.
Introduction
Over the last month, Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition made the news. After taking control of the company, the company immediately fired its top executives, including the majority of its trust and safety team.
Fringe platforms with little to no moderation have long been a refuge for users banned from more mainstream platforms like Twitter. Musk’s promise to turn Twitter into a “free speech” platform raises questions about what impact this decision will have on fringe platforms and how bad actors may be planning to seize the moment.
While past articles have focused on Aotearoa’s fringe internet, this week, we will broaden our scope to this internationally resonant incident.
Note: This article originally posted by Tohatoha in collaboration with Open Measures as part of the Internet Weather Report series.
Methodology
We isolated posts from the last 30 days on some of Open Measures’ largest collections. Our data from this period is as follows:
4chan: 22,186,769 posts
Gab: 2,690,940 posts
Telegram: 2,013,221 posts
Truth Social: 1,046,294 posts
Gettr: 1,027,228 posts
We further isolated posts mentioning both “Musk” and “Twitter” in this period and took the data down to this subset:
4chan: 2,152 posts
Gab: 4,577 posts
Telegram: 2,769 posts
Truth Social: 2,869 posts
Gettr: 2,290 posts
Of these, our research collaboration has found that malicious domestic actors in New Zealand have used Telegram and Gab most often. As such, we will focus on them most directly.
Analysis
Gab
The user most discussing Musk's Twitter acquisition on Gab is an anti-vax, pro-Trump, pro-QAnon account, which has both posted transphobic content and shared Nazi rally videos from pre-war Germany.
The second most active user is an account promoting false narratives that Trump won the 2020 US presidential election and spreading conspiracies about COVID-19.
The other accounts in the top five are similar in promoting the false and anti-democratic "coup attempt" narrative that Trump actually won the election — these accounts also seem to have a strong pro-Putin bent.
Most of these accounts link to other fringe platforms in their bios, such as BitChute, Telegram, and Gettr.
Among the most “favorited” posts was one exalting Musk for claiming the US election was stolen shortly after the Twitter acquisition went through.
Among NZ-specific Gab groups, the user most discussing this idea is a supposed New Zealander, whose account posts conspiratorial, pro-QAnon content and claims to be fighting [sic] “Unconventional, multi-dimensional, irregular Warfare – Human proxies, Spiritual War.”
Many accounts covered in past reports were also highly vocal on this topic.
Telegram
The users discussing Musk's Twitter acquisition most frequently are QAnon and “patriot” channels using militia symbologies.
The posts mentioning Musk and Twitter that garnered the most views were mostly pro-Trump, pro-coup, militia adjacent “patriot parties.” They have been seen sharing articles from Russian state media heralding Musk’s overthrow of the Twitter senior team as well as his supposed support for QAnon.
Other posts are from right wing provocateur “Project Veritas,” known for spreading propaganda and misinformation related to abortions and QAnon accounts.
Among NZ-specific users, we noted a general excitement brewing in relation to fired Twitter figures who had previously attempted to moderate content in the region.
Conclusion
From this initial research, we can see that racist, conspiracy-driven, anti-democratic groups are actively and excitedly discussing the news of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover.
Many of the users researched here discussed attempting to get their own banned accounts back. They also seemed to hope that Trump, upon his return to Twitter, would engage in further geopolitical warmongering, misinformation and harassment campaigns, instigation of offline violence, and anti-democratic organizing.
Whether this drives the users of fringe platforms back into the mainstream remains to be seen, though the renewed mainstreaming and platforming of their malicious campaigns on Twitter seems inevitable. Gab, a platform known by extremists as a refuge for its lenient content moderation policies, is most fervently discussing the takeover as a kind of "first shot" fired at the mainstream that foreshadows the arrival of future conflicts.
Free speech is a critical pillar of any functioning democracy, and internet platforms have a responsibility to balance these rights against user demands that platforms be free of violent online harassment and not host users engaged in organizing terror activities. As such, Open Measures will continue to report on these issues to bring information to light in the interest of ensuring public safety.
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