Elon Musk spoke during an American PAC town hall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Image: Getty Images.
(The Post News)- A recent study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate shows that billionaire Elon Musk’s social media posts, which have misinformation about the U.S. election, have accumulated more than 2 billion views on X in 2024.
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The increase in false information on X, owned by Musk, has caused concern among government officials and voting rights activists who are calling on social media platforms to act against lies related to elections. On Monday, experts in election misinformation stated that the platform is crucial in spreading untrue information about the key swing states that will probably decide the presidential election outcome.
According to a representative from X, the company’s Community Notes function, which allows users to provide extra context to posts, is better at assisting individuals in detecting deceptive content than standard warning flags on posts. Musk’s extensive following of almost 203 million people contributes to the creation of ‘network effects’. After Musk gained control of the company formerly called Twitter, he reduced content moderation and terminated thousands of employees. He has endorsed former US President Donald Trump, who is in a tight race against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
Kathleen Carley, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who is an expert on disinformation, stated that Musk’s extensive following of almost 203 million people allows for network effects where content from X can spread to various other social media and messaging platforms like Reddit and Telegram. She stated that X serves as a link between two platforms. The Center for Countering Digital Hate’s report states that Musk’s posts this year, totaling at least 87, have promoted false or misleading claims about the US election, accumulating two billion views.
During a press briefing on Monday, Philip Hensley-Robin, Pennsylvania executive director at Common Cause, mentioned how some X users in Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, have twisted incomplete voter registration form issues as election interference when local administrators flag them, leading to the forms not being processed.
On Monday, Cyabra, a company utilizing AI to identify online misinformation, reported that a particular account with 117,000 followers was instrumental in disseminating a false video alleging the destruction of Pennsylvania mail-in ballots for Trump.
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