The design and policies options of X created fertile land for inflammatory and racist narratives aimed at Muslims and migrants after last year’s southport’s mortal attack in the United Kingdom, a new analysis showed on Wednesday.
According to the investigation published by Amnesty International, the Social Network Platform X played a “central role” in the propagation of false narratives and harmful content, which contributed to the riots against Muslim and migrant communities in Britain.
The technical analysis of the Open Code of X or the publicly available software showed that its recommendation system, also known as content range algorithms, “systematically prioritizes” the content that causes indignation, causes exchanges, reactions and committed commitment, without appropriate safeguards to prevent or mitigate the damage.
“Our analysis shows that the design options and algorithmic policies of X contributed to the high risks in the middle of a wave of anti-musulman and antimigrant violence observed in several places throughout the United Kingdom last year, and that continues to present a serious risk of human rights today,” said Pat de Brun, head of great technology accounts at Amnesty International.
The extreme right disturbances exploded throughout the United Kingdom after the stabbing of Rudakubana Axel in Southport on July 29 of last year. Violence was fed by false online statements that the suspect, who is a British citizen born in Cardiff, Wales, was a Muslim asylum seeker.
Amid false statements that circulate on social media platforms, many mosques, Islamic buildings and hotels that lived migrants were attacked throughout the country.
The algorithm seems not to have a mechanism to assess the potential to cause damage
According to the investigation, provided that a publication promotes the commitment, the algorithm seems to have no mechanism to assess the potential to cause damage, “at least not until enough users inform them.”
“These design characteristics provided fertile terrain for inflammatory racist narratives to thrive in X following the Southport attack,” he added.
The study also pointed out that an account on X called ‘Europe Invasion’, known for publishing anti -immigrant and Islamophobic content, published shortly after news arose from the attack that the suspect was “allegedly a Muslim immigrant.”
He pointed out that the post obtained more than four million visits and, in 24 hours, all the positions of X speculating that the author was Muslim, a refugee, a foreign citizen or arrived by boat, were tracked to have an estimate of 27 million impressions.
In saying that the Southport tragedy occurred in the context of the “main changes in politics and staff” in X, the study pointed out that since the acquisition of Elon Musk at the end of 2022, X has fired the content moderation personnel, reinstalled accounts previously prohibited, dissolved the Trust and Security Advisory Council of Twitter, and TWITTER TRUST AND SECURITY ENGINEERS.
Numerous stories that had been previously prohibited from hatred or harassment, including that of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, an extreme right figure better known as Tommy Robinson, were also restored.
