Elon Musk’s plan to get back many banned Twitter accounts endangers human rights around the world, say human rights experts and activists.

Specifically, Musk’s decision to reinstate “inappropriate” accounts is expected to take effect this week, just a month after he took office and laid off hundreds of employees.

“Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter took us by surprise,” said Tenmoji Sundararajan, executive director of civil rights group Dalit Equality Labs, who said his decisions would provoke violence.

On Monday, Sundararajan took part in a teleconference where representatives of various human rights groups spoke, insisting that the restoration of certain accounts would pose a threat to human rights around the world.

Speakers stressed that Elon Musk’s decision will also have a huge impact in parts of the world outside of the US, as Twitter has so far protected users from misinformation.

The number of hate speech on Twitter has increased

The activists’ fears are not unfounded, according to a study by researchers at Tufts University’s Digital Planet group, who tracked hate speech on Twitter before and after Elon Musk took office, Time reports.

According to the study, tweets related to hate speech have increased in recent times. In particular, 7 of the top 20 tweets studied contained anti-Semitic and racist comments.

Recall, Elon Musk announced his decision to restore accounts last week, after it was preceded by an audience survey on the platform.

In this survey, over 72% of the users who responded voted in favor of reinstating suspended accounts.

According to Twitter, about 3.1 million users took part in the vote. However, the Associated Press reported that specific Twitter polls are unscientific.

Now the defenders fear that the situation will continue to deteriorate. “Without a comprehensive tool to combat violence on this platform, things will only get worse,” said Jessica Gonzalez, co-director of the Free Press media advocacy group.

Source: time