I started looking at Twitter about seven months ago, and I thought it tended to more verbal, negative insults than anything I've seen on FB. However, I've made a practice of limiting endorsing a friend request to people I actually know in real life; consequently, I only have about 150 friends. Also, people I know tend to be nice people who don't insult others. Since I have also made a practice of not asking people to be my friends and I set controls to maintain privacy, those choices afford some protection for me, or at least, that's what I believe.
Over the past couple of months as the election date grew near, the tone on Twitter changed. It gradually became negative, abrasive, and quick to insult and put down others who disagreed, as the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk promising free speech occurred. Calling people names, calling them stupid, or swearing is aggressive speech and shouldn't be minimized because it becomes normalized.
I like participating in discussions and hearing about how and what others think regarding various topics. I also believe that it's possible to argue about differences in politics and other topics because you can disagree with others without being disagreeable. It seems that boundaries have been eroded in reference to how we communicate with each other, especially under the assumed protection of anonymity on social media. The era of Trump putting down others has also been a factor in giving permission to aggressive speech as freedom of speech, despite his wife's request to "be presidential," her attention to cyber bullying, and her "Be Best" goal. Perhaps, hearings with government committees are in Elon Musk's future to address speech, security, and privacy issues on Twitter.
I started looking at Twitter about seven months ago, and I thought it tended to more verbal, negative insults than anything I've seen on FB. However, I've made a practice of limiting endorsing a friend request to people I actually know in real life; consequently, I only have about 150 friends. Also, people I know tend to be nice people who don't insult others. Since I have also made a practice of not asking people to be my friends and I set controls to maintain privacy, those choices afford some protection for me, or at least, that's what I believe.
Over the past couple of months as the election date grew near, the tone on Twitter changed. It gradually became negative, abrasive, and quick to insult and put down others who disagreed, as the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk promising free speech occurred. Calling people names, calling them stupid, or swearing is aggressive speech and shouldn't be minimized because it becomes normalized.
I like participating in discussions and hearing about how and what others think regarding various topics. I also believe that it's possible to argue about differences in politics and other topics because you can disagree with others without being disagreeable. It seems that boundaries have been eroded in reference to how we communicate with each other, especially under the assumed protection of anonymity on social media. The era of Trump putting down others has also been a factor in giving permission to aggressive speech as freedom of speech, despite his wife's request to "be presidential," her attention to cyber bullying, and her "Be Best" goal. Perhaps, hearings with government committees are in Elon Musk's future to address speech, security, and privacy issues on Twitter.
I don't think there's been an increase in hate speech on Twitter because the volume of hateful posts was already high. Maybe those posting the the hate speech are spelling their words correctly because they don't have to get around filters anymore.