In the midst of upheaval surrounding Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform formerly known as Twitter, a Berlin-based software developer, Travis Brown, is embroiled in a legal battle to reinstate his suspended account. Brown’s account was suspended by X, citing violations of their terms of service due to his research on the platform.
Before Elon Musk’s takeover
Brown had dedicated a year to open source projects at Twitter. Post-acquisition, he focused on researching hate speech and account suspensions on the platform. To collect data for his research, he developed a software tool in collaboration with the Open Knowledge Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to data transparency.
Travis Brown has enlisted the support of HateAid
a German organization combating digital violence, to contest his account suspension. With their assistance, Brown initially obtained an injunction to restore his account. However, X has since escalated the situation, hiring an external law firm to challenge Brown’s case after a Berlin District Court rejected his request for another injunction.
Brown contends that X’s actions aim to silence researchers monitoring extremism and disinformation on the platform, which he believes poses increasing dangers. He firmly asserts, “We will not be silenced and will continue to collect and share data because we all have a right to understand the effects that these platforms have on our world.”
As reported by Wired, Brown’s account was first suspended without warning by X in July. It was reinstated following a court order in September but later disabled again. In the same month, the company revised its terms of service, explicitly prohibiting crawling or scraping the platform without prior written consent, aligning with Elon Musk’s previous actions against accounts like ElonJet.
Brown’s research garnered significant attention as Elon Musk implemented changes to Twitter policies and downsized the company’s workforce. One of the notable changes was Elon Musk’s unbanning of previously suspended accounts, including the prominent neo-Nazi, Andrew Anglin, known for creating the white supremacist website, The Daily Stormer. Brown meticulously documented X’s “mass unbanning,” compiling a list of reinstated accounts along with their follower count and original suspension date.
Brown’s research findings have also been widely cited in reports concerning X’s paid subscriber numbers, which the company has not publicly disclosed. As of November 2022, X had converted approximately 140,000 users to its paid service, Twitter Blue. According to Brown’s estimates, X Premium, Elon Musk’s revamped version of Twitter Blue, boasted around 890,000 subscribers by September 2023. Brown’s data also formed the basis of reports highlighting the popularity of Twitter’s paid blue checks among far-right and extremist figures, such as white nationalist Richard Spencer, who organized the Unite the Right rally.
X’s conflict with Travis Brown is just one instance of the company’s aggressive stance against organizations conducting research on extremism within the platform. X is currently pursuing a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), accusing the anti-hate group of causing a decline in its advertising revenue by reporting surges in hate speech under Musk’s leadership. The lawsuit shares similarities with X’s allegations that CCDH unlawfully obtains the data used for its research.
Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, CEO of HateAid
underscores the significance of Travis Brown’s case, stating, “It is extremely dangerous if independent research and reporting on social networks can no longer take place. We support this case with Travis Brown on behalf of all researchers who shed light on what occurs behind the scenes on these platforms.”
