Musk says hate speech impressions down on Twitter: Here’s what caused the spike

Elon Musk has been working hard to woo advertisers – who have paused advertising on the social media platform – by sharing positive data via tweets. In one of the latest developments around the matter, Twitter’s new boss has once again shared a data chart suggesting a decline in hate speech on the platform since he took over the company in late October this year.
“Hate speech impressions [are] down by 1/3 from pre-spike levels. Congrats to [the] Twitter team!” he tweeted. As per the data chart, in October there was a spike in hate speech on Twitter with 10 million impressions. The hate speech impressions are claimed to have fallen to roughly 2.5 million in November.

Musk’s tweet gains significance because media reports suggest advertisers were particularly concerned about hate speech on the platform after its purchase by the Tesla CEO. Companies that have paused advertising on Twitter have reportedly mentioned the risk of their advertising appearing next to the wrong messages.
Volkswagen, Carlsberg, and United Airlines are some of the multinational brands that have paused their advertising on the social media platform. They are reportedly seeking clearer assurances from Musk that the company’s advertisements will not appear next to hate speech or misinformation.

Musk’s approach to sporadically sharing such data on a public platform could be a part of these assurances that advertisers want from him.
What caused the spike in hate speech?
In a separate tweet in the thread, Musk claimed that there were 1500 accounts that were responsible for causing the spike in hate speech on Twitter. He also says that reducing the maximum number of allowed tweets per day helped in the decline of hate speech.

Twitter adds 1.6 million DAUs in a week, says Musk
Recently, Musk claimed that Twitter has added 1.6 million daily active users (DAUs), which is “another all-time high” record, apparently implying that Twitter is not turning into a “free-for-all hellscape.”
Earlier this month, Musk claimed that “Twitter usage is at an all-time high lol” and he just hopes “the servers don’t’ melt” – apparently sending a message to advertisers leaving Twitter. A report by The Verge said that Twitter’s monetisable daily user (mDAU) growth accelerated to more than 20%. Twitter’s largest market, the US, is also said to be “growing even more quickly.”
An FAQ obtained by The Verge reportedly suggested that the “levels of hate speech remain within historical norms, representing 0.25% to 0.45% of tweets per day among hundreds of millions.”