Since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas this weekend, graphic footage of abductions and military operations has spread like wildfire on social media platforms, including X (formerly Twitter). However, misinformation on the platform makes it difficult for users to assess what is happening locally.
Over the weekend, X flagged several posts as misleading or false, including a video purporting to show Israeli airstrikes against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of users viewed the posts, and the most widely shared posts were flagged by the platform as misleading. Still, dozens of posts with the same video and caption weren’t flagged by X’s system, according to a CNBC review.
The patchwork enforcement action came days after NBC News reported on X’s actions. cut into that false information and the Election Integrity Team. Shortly before Hamas launched its surprise attack, X removed headlines from links on its platform, making it difficult to distinguish between external links and standard photos shared on X.
Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, the company’s executives were dedicating significant resources to combating manipulated and misleading information. After Musk renamed and took over the platform, he cut the size of a team dedicated to fighting misinformation and criticized the company’s past efforts with the U.S. government on COVID-19 disinformation. .
Under the mask, X prioritized user-driven tagging of content with Community Notes, an existing feature formerly known as Birdwatch. However, a study published by the EU in September found that misinformation is more easily detected on X, despite its ability to add crowdsourced context to posts. Other social media platforms Relatively more engagement than other platforms.
Alex Goldenberg, an analyst at the Network Infection Research Institute, studies hate and right-wing extremism on social media and in the real world. Goldenberg told CNBC that even before Musk’s tenure, Twitter had struggled to deal with disinformation in languages other than English.
“Misinformation, disinformation, and incitement to violence in English are often prioritized, while information in Arabic is often ignored,” Goldenberg said. He added that the NCRI has noted that “repurposed videos and photos from old conflicts are sometimes deliberately associated with this particular conflict.”
As users realized the impact of the changes to X’s content moderation, some fell prey to sharing misinformation on the platform.
Paul Bernal, a professor of IT law at the University of East Anglia, said: “Elon Musk has destroyed perhaps the best thing about Twitter: its ability to obtain relatively accurate and reliable data in real time during a crisis. That’s surprising.” , I wrote to X on monday.
On Sunday, the British politician shared a video purportedly from a BBC correspondent. “Following some pretty appalling and vague statements from the BBC yesterday and this morning and what have you, now this comes from a BBC journalist,” wrote Chris Clarkson, MP for Heywood and Middleton. .
This video was not by a BBC correspondent. “Comments from the BBC Stand,” Clarkson wrote on Monday, but admitted the original post was not by a BBC journalist.
Currently, government verification gives certain accounts a silver checkmark, but verification for prominent individuals and journalists will be phased out in favor of paid Twitter Blue verification, It has become more difficult to verify the authenticity of the messenger and the content of the message.” Goldenberg said.
Some propaganda videos produced by Hamas are also circulating on X. This terrorist organization has been banned from most social media platforms, including his X, but continues to share videos on Telegram. Goldenberg told CNBC that these videos are often re-shared on X, including some of the recent attacks on Israel. And it can have real-world implications as well.
“As we have seen, when tensions in the region rise, for example in May 2021, hate crimes targeting Jewish communities outside the region are likely to increase,” Goldenberg said. Ta.
Paid verification is said to increase user posts and comments on X, and some of the posts tagged as misleading come from verified users. Musk himself has posted several times related to the conflict in Ukraine and, most recently, the conflict in Israel. On Sunday, Musk encouraged his 160 million followers to follow two accounts that he said contained “good” content about the conflict.
One of them had made anti-Semitic posts in the past, including telling Twitter users to “mind your own business, Jews.” Musk has since deleted posts promoting the account.
Correction: This article has been updated to correctly reflect Alex Goldenberg’s comments on X and English disinformation on Twitter. Previous versions contained transcription errors.
