Twitter lists 'Kill all Jews' as trend, apologizes later
Twitter is facing flak for promoting hateful, anti-semitic content on its platform. On Friday, a number of users of the service saw 'Kill all Jews' as a trend, according to a BuzzFeed report. It remained on the platform for about 10 minutes or so, and was later taken down by the microblogging website. Twitter has since apologized for the mistake. Here's what happened.
Only New Yorkers saw the trend, it seems
Twitter's 'trends' feature shows tailor-made and location-based trends to keep users updated on all sorts of happenings. Tailor-made trends are customized according to where you live and people you follow, while the other option only focuses on location. And, this hateful phrase appeared as a trend in the location-based section for New York before being taken down.
But, how such content appeared?
Twitter's trending section is driven by algorithms that analyze topics of discussions and determine what's trending on the platform. In this case, 'Kill all Jews' was the subject matter due to the recent vandalism of a synagogue in Brooklyn. As a result, the algorithms picked it up and posted it as a trend. Twitter moderators could have prevented this, but even they missed, somehow.
Here's what Twitter's spokesperson had to say
"This phrase should not have appeared in trends, and we're sorry for this mistake. This was trending as a result of coverage and horrified reactions to the vandalism against a synagogue in New York. Regardless, it should not have appeared as a trend."
Also, the term 'Kill all Jews' was incorrectly reported
While Twitter has apologized for the mistake, it was worth noting that the anti-semitic phrase trended on Twitter due to incorrectly reported news on the platform. The Brooklyn synagogue was vandalized with graffiti mentioning racist phrases, but 'Kill all Jews' was not one of them. However, many news reports claimed that it was, and these reports later ended up on Twitter.
