LGBTQ+ Africans fight Twitter hate speech after Elon Musk’s takeover
LGBTQ+ rights groups across Africa said they are offering online safety training and trauma counselling to users after seeing a rise in hate speech since Elon Musk took over the platform.
Campaigners from Ghana to Nigeria and Uganda fear the recent increase in anti-gay posts on Twitter – which included people being outed, vilified, blackmailed and even threatened with death – will drive LGBTQ+ Africans off the microblogging site. “Twitter has become a really important forum for the LGBTQ community in many African countries.
Even with all the increasing hate, we simply can’t stop using it,” said Danny Bediako, founder of Rightify Ghana, an LGBTQ+ rights group. “It has become a place where we have a voice, where we can speak our truth and get support from the wider world.
That’s why it’s important to find ways to keep our community safe.” Billionaire and self-declared “free speech absolutist” Musk’s takeover of Twitter in late October sparked alarm from rights groups across the world over concerns ranging from hate speech and disinformation to data privacy.
