November 6, 2023 X CEO Linda Yaccarino personally intervened to remove a viral pro-Hitler post from the platform, according to a report by The Information. The post, which was shared by a Pakistani senator, featured a photo of Hitler with the caption “At least now the world know, why he did, what he did.”
The post sparked outrage and was viewed nearly a million times before it was removed. X staff reportedly scrambled to get the post removed, with advertisers threatening to cut off spending if it wasn’t taken down.
Yaccarino eventually sent the post to X’s global escalation team, which removed it for violating the company’s policies on hate speech. However, some staffers were upset by the situation, feeling that executives were slow to act.
Experts have previously blamed Elon Musk’s laissez-faire approach to moderation for the proliferation of misinformation and hate speech on the platform. Yaccarino’s response to the Hitler tweet suggests that she may have a slightly different approach to moderation than Musk.
In a recent blog post, she asserted that safety is a “critical priority” for the X team and said that the team is working to “combat bad actors and consistently enforce our rules in areas such as hate speech, platform manipulation, child safety, impersonation, civic integrity, and more.”
The sources for this piece include an article in BusinessInsider.
