Are disabled folks at risk of losing online networks with Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter?

While social media has been a space of hate, misinformation and abuse, it has played a vital role in forming community for disabled folks who face barriers in connecting with each other in other structures of ableism.

"Platforms like Twitter helped us to feel less alone and gaslit by our experiences and allowed us to contextualize our experiences in a way that gave us peace,” disabled blogger Imani Barbarin writes.

Twitter also became a space for disabled folks to find narratives that they could resonate with, unlike the misrepresented stereotypes prevalent in mainstream television and movies.

“Through those hashtags (like #CripTheVote), I met other disabled people, particularly, Black disabled people who affirmed my experiences and were vulnerable enough to let into their worlds. I was finally seeing the representation I had always wanted and disabled people—Black disabled people were in the directors’ chairs creating our own narratives and forcing people to see us,” Barbarin writes.

But with Elon Musk attempting to play God in his acquisition of Twitter, there’s been a looming threat of losing these networks and communities found and formed with such labour, as the platform morphs into a more toxic version of its present self.

As reported by New York Times, there was a sharp and unprecedented rise in hate speech with Musk’s take over:

​​Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, slurs against Black Americans showed up on the social media service an average of 1,282 times a day. After the billionaire became Twitter’s owner, they jumped to 3,876 times a day.

Slurs against gay men appeared on Twitter 2,506 times a day on average before Mr. Musk took over. Afterward, their use rose to 3,964 times a day.

And antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61 percent in the two weeks after Mr. Musk acquired the site.