Billionaire Elon Musk’s false or misleading claims about the US election have racked up 2 billion views on social network X this year, according to a report by the nonprofit group Center for Countering Digital Hate.
The platform is also playing a critical role in enabling the spread of false informationon the hotly contested states that will likely determine the outcome of the presidential race, as experts on elections and disinformation stated on Monday.
An X spokesperson said the “Community Notes” feature, which allows users to add additional context to posts, is more effective at helping people identify misleading content than traditional warning flags that flag posts with.
Since taking over the company formerly known as Twitter, Musk has reduced content moderation and laid off thousands of employees. He has also supported former President Donald Trump, who faces Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in an exceptionally close race.
Musk’s massive reach, with nearly 203 million followers, helps enable “network effects” in which X content can jump to other social networks and messaging platforms. like Reddit and Telegram, said Kathleen Carley, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University and an expert on misinformation. “X is a communicating vessel between one platform and another,” he said.
At least 87 of Musk’s posts this year defended claims about the US election that verifiers classified as false or misleading and that accumulated 2,000 million visitsaccording to the report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
