Why did Twitter fall victim to a hate raid after Elon Musk's arrival?

Elon Musk made his purchase of Twitter for US$44 billion (RM208.2bil) official on October 27, 2022. — Photography Souvik Banerjee/Unsplash/AFP Relaxnews

Hate raids are – unfortunately – nothing new on Twitter. While the reasons are variable, this time the social network was the target of "trolls" who wanted to test its moderation policies.

The arrival of billionaire Elon Musk at the head of Twitter hasn't done anything to put an end to grumbling. While some warn about a potential decline in moderation on the platform, others have gone straight to testing the reliability of the tools. The social network suffered the onslaught of more than 50,000 tweets in just 48 hours, Yoel Roth, Twitter's head of safety and integrity, revealed on October 30, 2022 on his Twitter account. These attacks were carried out by "just" 300 accounts spreading hate speech and participating in misinformation.