A Lack Of Communication

 A Lack Of Communication

    The most important step for a company to take during an ethical crisis is to speak up and be transparent. Telling your customers what the intent was, what the result was, and what steps are going to be taken to solve the issue is paramount to maintaining trust and credibility with your users. Since April 2nd's reveal that the Twitter algorithm has been down-trending the Ukrainian war crisis, there has been no communication from either Twitter or Elon Musk on the subject. The only communication from Musk's part has been his posting jokes and "memes" on his Twitter page, showing either a disinterest in the issue or just not knowing its existence.


    It is important to take note that it has been a very short while since the release of the algorithm as well as the findings of the censoring. However this is still no excuse for there to be no communication on the subject, and rather having the CEO posting jokes. Twitter has in recent months moved very heavily on the subject of censorship and suppressing certain accounts and users, however, an overstep that's been responded to with outrage should without a doubt be addressed.

    There is unfortunately not much to be said about Elon Musk's and Twitter's approach on this side of the issue as they have been completely silent on the subject. Many Twitter users have taken to the site in response to the hope of a response from the CEO, to no avail. We can only hope to get an adequate response within the following weeks, with more and more news outlets posting articles on the subject, with Yahoo News headlining the topic and the GitHub post that contained the algorithm release being bombarded with commands from Twitter users as well.



    The next steps for Twitter should without a doubt include a message addressing the concerns of the public, as well as being completely transparent about the intentions behind the censorship move. Moving forward with their plan of keeping the platform open source, it would seem that transparency is incredibly important to the company, so hopefully, this issue will aid in that journey as well.


Sources:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk

https://aakashgupta.substack.com/p/the-real-twitter-files-the-algorithm

https://news.yahoo.com/analysis-twitter-algorithm-code-reveals-072800540.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/27/technology/elon-musk-twitter-deal-complete.html

Comments

  1. Stephanie HeiermannApril 5, 2023 at 9:41 AM

    It is amazing to me that Twitter and/or Elon Musk have not responded to the concerns over the Ukraine war being down trended by algorithm on twitter. This was an intentional act that is obviously cause for concern. Musk talks about having free speech yet his own company is making sure that tweets about Ukraine do not show up in peoples feeds is backwards and dishonest. And then to not respond? It leaves a lot of questions about what is going on at twitter unanswered and users uneasy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. amour narcisse thompsonApril 6, 2023 at 11:39 AM

    The fact that Elon has yet to respond to the situation shows the lack of transparency with Twitter’s users. Similarly, companies like Apple and Twitch also lack transparency with their consumers almost as if they keep the problems they are fixing secretive which is a prevalent problem among big companies. I think companies should keep their consumers in the loop of what their problems are and how they are fixing them.

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