Elon Musk’s utopian vision for a “maximally trusted and broadly inclusive”; Twitter quickly unravelled after his $44 billion acquisition last year: experts are now outraged at the metamorphosis of the platform into a hotbed of misinformation, incited by policy shifts and the erratic personal boosting of dodgy claims by Musk himself.
Ironically, this is all happening at a time when hate speech and state-sponsored propaganda are on the rise, and access to research is being monetized more than ever, resulting in lower transparency than ever before: the lack of oversight was glaringly exposed during the recent Israel-Hamas start of the conflict, where X became a conduit for fake news. The problem was even worse because Musk, with his aversion to EU regulations and incentivization of viral content, made it much easier: the blue checkmark is no longer for verification but for a paid subscription, lending legitimacy to misinformation peddlers, and X has consequently morphed from a trusted news source into a chaotic landscape where truth is obscured and bad actors thrive, casting a shadow over Musk’s original promises.
Consequently, unchecked amplification of paid posts raises concerns about the role of the platform in spreading misinformation and hate speech: X’s algorithmic favouritism toward paying users, combined with lax content moderation, has successfully developed over recent months into an environment in which bad actors are the ones flourishing at the expense of platform credibility, with further erosion of trust in online information. It comes as no surprise then that the first-ever investigation under the EU’s Digital Services Act, is into Elon Musk’s X; the investigation, triggered by X’s response to the recent Israel-Hamas conflict, focuses on four key areas: X’s failure to curb illegal content and disinformation, misleading practices around its “blue check”; verification system, lack of transparency in advertising, and restricted data access for researchers. This regulatory scrutiny highlights the growing tension between Musk’s laissez-faire approach to content moderation and the EU’s stricter regulations: although Musk has publicly committed to complying with the DSA, his past actions, including firing a significant portion of the trust and safety team, have raised concerns about X’s ability to effectively address harmful content.
This could lead to massive penalties for X, amounting to 6% of its global revenue, and potential orders to implement specific measures to comply with the DSA, and this is why the matter is closely watched, since the outcome may set the angle for future decisions against other tech giants under the new EU law, with the result likely to take a lead in setting the future of online platforms and their obligation to keep their users safe from unsafe content. A new study has demonstrated that, as the USA presidential election approaches, X has grown friendlier to Republicans than their opponents since Elon Musk took over: for starters, a Pew Research Center study has found, Republican views on X’s impact on democracy suddenly shot positive while their Democrat opponents’ slid negative; these reversals came after a few moves Musk made in the past months to the social media platform, among them the reversal of bans on some high-profile controversial figures, allegedly to uphold free speech. However, this has led just a third of Democrats to feel welcome on X, as against more than half of Republicans.
While X still leads all social media sites as a source of news, with a clear majority of its users saying they get news from the site, it is exactly this emphasis on news that has also led to concerns about accuracy, especially from the political left: the findings in the aforementioned study, released five months before the 2024 election, underlined worries over the role of social media in shaping political discourse and the accuracy of information online. Adding to the controversy is that Elon Musk has been in news recently due to his public admiration for German far-right party AFD, among other far-right political parties and figures across the globe, for that matter.
Lately, Musk also spoke up accusing the European Commission, notably Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, of having sealed an “illegal secret deal” with other online platforms: according to Musk, this involved censoring content in exchange for avoiding fines under the EU’s new DSA. He then added how other platforms accepted the deal, but X refused. The Commission has rebuffed all reports of a secret settlement and clarified that it was just a chance given to X to offer commitments to close the issue, as it is a practice under regular regulatory processes. It remains to be seen whether X will offer such commitments or whether the matter will proceed to court.
This public spat between Musk and the European Commission highlights the tension between tech giants and regulators over issues of content moderation and online safety, and it also raises questions about the transparency and fairness of regulatory processes in the digital age: the ruling in this case may well set the tone for the future of online platforms and online content regulation within Europe, but also for democratic processes and manipulations of public opinion through disinformation.
And though he has himself allowed to be described as a “free speech absolutist”, Elon Musk certainly has shown a clear utter contempt for the ideals he is purporting: his actions on Twitter with the suspension of the journalists who have been critical of Israel, or the lawsuit against Media Matters for reporting on hate speech, are actions quite opposite to open dialogue. Moreover, his selective indignation and tolerance for criticism, as well as his company’s history of silencing dissent and putting business interests above free speech, expose the insincerity in this stance.
The latest example of such recklessness? The circumstances of the events that followed the tragic stabbing attack in England on July 29 were heavily conditioned by Elon Musk’s ownership of X and his presence on X as a chief factor: Musk’s decision to relax content moderation policies and reinstate previously banned extremist figures like Tommy Robinson created an environment ripe for the rapid spread of misinformation, and this was clearly evident in the aftermath of the stabbing, as false narratives about the attacker’s identity quickly gained traction on the platform. Figures like Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate, who have a history of promoting divisive and inflammatory content, used X to amplify false claims that the attacker was a migrant: these claims, despite being debunked by authorities, reached millions of viewers due to the platform’s vast reach, while the lack of robust content moderation on X meant that these harmful lies were not effectively countered, allowing them
to fuel a far-right riot in Southport. And Musk’s preferred approach of user fact-checking through Community Notes proved insufficient in this case: while some false posts did receive notes highlighting their inaccuracies, the posts themselves remained visible and continued to be shared widely. This highlights a fundamental flaw in Musk’s approach: despite the fact that user fact-checking can be a useful tool, it cannot replace professional moderation when it comes to quickly addressing and containing the spread of dangerous misinformation.
This latest failure has grim consequences. The riot in Southport has now left dozens of police officers injured, not to mention caused huge distress to a community that is still trying to come to terms with the original tragedy. It has also fed widespread misinformation in the most dangerous anti-immigrant sentiment, further polarizing public discourse. In this context, with Elon Musk owning X and implementing chaotic policies, it becomes rather undeniable that the blame was his to take on the events in question: his actions created an environment where harmful misinformation could spread and led to devastating consequences on people directly affected by the violence and the community at large, simultaneously tweeting that “civil war is inevitable”. While he has been an advocate of a platform where diverse views can be freely exchanged, Musk has himself built an arbitrary, opaque, and retaliatory environment toward critics, a sort of hypocrisy that not only undermines his credibility toward advocating for free speech but also threatens the very basic tenets of open discourse and democratic expression. It is high time that the EU steps in to at least stop the tide of Russian and Chinese disinformation from spreading within European borders and puts an end to what is currently a digital Wild West, one that tech billionaires have long supported and coveted.
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