With inflammatory, misleading posts to his 200 million followers, Elon Musk has drawn criticism for raising the political temperature ahead of an already polarized US election through his influential platform plagued by misinformation.
Researchers fear it could stop Musk – who has endorsed Donald Trump – using X, formerly Twitter, and his personal account to sway voters in favor of the Republican candidate, question the legitimacy of the election process and incite violence against political opponents and poll workers.
“Musk has a huge following on X and treats the platform as his own disinformation mouthpiece,” Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center to Combat Digital Hate (CCDH), told AFP.
Musk reinforced lies debunked by politicians, including Trump, that Democrats were “bringing” immigrants into the United States to vote in the November election and that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were killing and eating pets.
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Shortly after Trump’s second assassination attempt, Musk posted a comment — along with a thoughtful emoji — that “nobody’s even trying to assassinate” President Joe Biden and Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Musk deleted the post, which the White House called “irresponsible,” adding that violence should never be “encouraged or joked about.”
Musk also faced criticism for sharing a deepfake video in which a Harris impersonator calls Biden senile and says he “doesn’t know the first thing about running the country.”
The video was originally posted by an X account linked to conservative podcaster Chris Kohls and labeled a “parody,” but Musk’s repost made no such disclosure.
“High Impact” –
Musk’s false or misleading campaign claims about X have garnered nearly 1.2 billion views, CCDH reported last month. His investigators found 50 posts by Musk since January that contained campaign claims that were debunked by independent auditors.
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X did not respond to a request for comment.
Musk, analysts say, appears to have replaced the role Trump once played on the platform.
“What made Trump’s tweets so impactful in 2016 — and throughout his presidency — wasn’t just that people saw them on Twitter, but how much media coverage they got,” Joshua Tucker, co-director of the NYU Center for Social Media and Politics, told AFP.
“What’s happening with Musk these days on Twitter/X is similar: his posts aren’t just showing up on the site, they also seem to be getting a lot of media coverage.”
The platform is very different today compared to the previous 2020 election, when it was largely seen as a clearinghouse of reliable information.
Since buying it in 2022 for $44 billion, Musk has aggressively sought to shape the site as a censorship-free haven and a superior source to the mainstream media — winning praise from US conservatives who strongly abhor moderation of the site’s content. social media.
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It has gutted trust and security teams, scaled back content-policing efforts, and brought well-known conspiracy theorists back on the platform, turning it into what researchers call a cesspool of disinformation.
In August, five US states sent an open letter to Musk, begging him to fix his AI chatbot X – known as Grok – after it shared misinformation about the election.
“Losing the Battle”
Outside the US, Musk doesn’t always have the same freedom to let users post whatever they want.
In Brazil, a high-profile judge ordered X suspended after Musk refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts accused of spreading fake news and then failed to name a new legal representative in the country as ordered.
Musk appeared to capitulate last week, with the company’s lawyers saying X had complied with the orders.
Meanwhile, EU regulators are currently conducting a wide-ranging investigation into X to see how effectively it combats disinformation.
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If found guilty, X faces large fines or orders to take urgent measures to comply with EU rules.
Australia is planning similar regulation and in Britain new rules are due to come into force that could give authorities more say in how platforms control their content.
“Musk’s reputation is slowly being lost in the court of public opinion, with people increasingly citing his authoritarian tactics,” Nora Benavidez, senior adviser to the nonprofit Free Press, told AFP.
“He can continue down this sad path, but it’s a losing battle.”
Source: AFP