The war in Gaza exposes how X has suspended disinformation since Elon Musk bought it

The reopening of the armed conflict in Gaza has highlighted the inability of X (the social network formerly known as Twitter) to stop the spread of disinformation, which has multiplied in recent days. Data verification experts relate it to the arrival of Elon Musk: in the last year, the company relaxed the platform’s rules, fired most of the people who were in charge of verifying hoaxes and restored accounts that were at some point Censored for breaking the rules. Additionally, a few months before the conflict, X removed access to a data tool that was free to academics and was used to identify accounts that were dedicated to spreading false information. Information verification experts assure that the avalanche of falsehoods has never been the same.

“Whenever there is some type of crisis, whether national or international, there is a spike in misinformation. But in this case we are verifying that there is, in general, more misinformation and that it goes further,” acknowledges Clara Jiménez, co-founder and CEO of Maldita, a Spanish non-profit foundation dedicated to data verification. Jiménez explains that the new payment model does not contribute to generating clarity either. In fact, the publications of users who have a premium subscription – who pay eight euros per month in exchange for having the checkblue, among other services—are promoted by the platform and appear among the first tweets when information about the war is searched. “Accounts with Twitter Blue are better positioned on the wall and in responses, and misinformers know this and take advantage of it,” Jiménez criticizes. Before Musk’s arrival, verification was reserved for the accounts of well-known and influential people, including journalists who worked in well-known media outlets with many followers, which gave veracity to the news they shared.

Since the summer, the platform’s moderation system depends on “community notes”, comments written and evaluated by a group of volunteers who have been previously approved. The notes are published after reaching a certain threshold of useful votes from “people with different points of view”, as explained by it is necessary to verify. The platform only publishes notes that have received enough votes in favor from users who usually disagree with their assessments, in order to guarantee ideological transversality. Once open, the note can continue to be rated, even by unregistered users who view it; It also happens that a note already published ends up disappearing later.

In a Community Notes account posting, the company acknowledges having disseminated more than 500 articles on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They also claim to have removed accounts affiliated with the Hamas terrorist group that had recently been created and that were acting “against tens of thousands of publications for sharing graphic media, violent speech and hateful behavior.”

Videos and photos of other conflicts

In recent days, however, instead of encountering verified information, X users have witnessed an unprecedented number of images and videos taken out of context that do not correspond to what is happening in Gaza and Israel. For example, a video purporting to show a Hamas militant firing a shoulder-mounted weapon and attacking an Israeli helicopter went viral. However, as BBC journalist Shayan Sardarizade pointed out in a thread that compiles lies about the conflict, it is a fragment of the video game Weapon 3. Sardarizade assures that in

Also the videos of Israeli children in cages kidnapped by Hamas are false. The Maldita team has traced the origin of the images from TikTok — they are no longer present on this platform, but they are still on X — demonstrating that the video was shared days before Hamas launched its offensive against Israel. Other hoaxes that are spreading like wildfire are the videos of bombings and building collapses from other wars, which are being reused to make it look like they have been recorded these days.

Elon Musk himself has only made the situation worse. As he has been doing regularly since he bought Twitter, the businessman recommended following information about Hamas attacks and Israel’s war against the Islamist militia through accounts that have been proven to spread false content. “To follow the war in real time, @WarMonitors and @sentdefender are good,” Musk wrote in a post on Sunday morning in which he invited his 150 million followers to contribute more suggestions.

Both accounts spread the lie in May that there had been an explosion near the White House, while the @WarMonitors account often posts anti-Semitic comments on X, as noted by different users below Musk’s post. For example, last year the account responded to a message from rapper Kanye West (now known as Ye) talking about an “overwhelming majority of people in the media and white Zin0nists.” Musk removed his recommendation shortly after, although in the short time it was published it reached more than 11 million views. The same day, Musk attempted to correct the mistake with another tweet: “As always, try to stay as close to the truth as possible, even in the case of things you don’t like.”

The widespread misinformation that is circulating in X has not gone unnoticed by the European Union either. In an urgent letter published on “We have reports from qualified sources that warn of potentially illegal content circulating on your service, despite urgent notices from the relevant authorities,” says the letter from Breton, one of the harshest voices against Musk and Twitter’s constant non-compliance. Under the direction of the businessman, the company abandoned the voluntary code against misinformation to comply with community standards that dictate that social media companies must respond to complaints about illegal content within 24 hours.

Musk’s response to the commissioner was quick to arrive: “Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports. Please list the violations in X that you allude to so that the public can see them.” The next day, Breton’s profile dawned with an ironic tweet in which he shared his newly launched Bluesky accountthe social network created by a former Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey.

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