Musk and X are ground zero for US election misinformation, experts say

WASHINGTON: Billionaire Elon Musk’s false or misleading statements about this year’s US election generated 2 billion views on social media platform X, according to a report by the non-profit group Center to Counter Digital Hate.

The platform also plays a central role in spreading misinformation about critical states that will likely determine the outcome of the presidential race, election and disinformation experts said Monday.

X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since taking over the company formerly known as Twitter, Musk has limited content moderation and fired thousands of employees. He endorsed former President Donald Trump, who is facing an exceptionally tight race against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

Musk’s enormous reach of nearly 203 million followers helps drive “network effects” in which content on X can spill over into other social media and messaging platforms such as Reddit and Telegram, said Kathleen Carley, a professor of computer science at Carnegie University. Mellon and an expert on disinformation. “X is a channel from one platform to another,” she said.

At least 87 of Musk’s posts this year made claims about the US election that fact-checkers found to be false or misleading, and received 2 billion views, according to a report from the Center to Counter Digital Hate.

In Pennsylvania, one of seven key swing states, some X users seized on instances in which local election administrators flagged incomplete voter registration forms that would not be processed, falsely calling the events examples of election interference, said Philip Hensley-Robin, Pennsylvania. executive director of Common Cause during a press briefing on Monday.

Common Cause is a nonpartisan organization that promotes accountable government and voting rights.

Some of X’s posts suggested that “there was voter fraud, when in fact we know very clearly that election officials and election administrators in all of our counties followed the rules and … therefore only eligible voters are voting,” Hensley-Robin said .

Cyabra, a firm that uses artificial intelligence to detect online disinformation, said Monday that account X, with 117,000 followers, played a key role in spreading a fake video purporting to show the destruction of Trump mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.