A new report from a British non-profit organization Center Against Digital Hate (CCDH) found that Elon Musk, the owner of X, spread disinformation about the US elections and the Democratic presidential campaign in 50 posts this year alone. His claims go unchecked on the platform, even through its own “Community Notes” feature. CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed says this lack of fact-checking shows that “his business is incapable of containing algorithmically enhanced incitement, as we all know, as we experienced on January 6. 2021.”
The report cites 50 posts on Musk’s X account between Jan. 1 and July 31 that contained election-related claims that independent fact-checkers found to be false. Most of the posts involved allegations that the Democratic Party imported voters to gain an electoral advantage. He posited conspiracy theories “The goal of the Democratic Party is to import voters” March 28 and “Dems won’t deport because every illegal vote is more likely” On February 26 Political fact From February 2021 to September 2023, he called the last claim “False” citing the 3.6 million immigrants removed from the United States during the administration of President Biden.
About half a dozen of Musk’s posts also falsely claim that the US election system is vulnerable to fraud. He called for the abolition of electronic voting machines because of them “Risk of being hacked by humans or AI” In his post on June 15, X. He also confirmed it “Mail-in ballots should not be allowed” It is accompanied by a video of Fox News’ Jesse Waters and House Speaker Mike Johnson making claims about the ease with which non-citizens can vote in American elections. None of the posts have been edited. (Brennan Justice Center has called cases of voter fraud “extremely rare” and notes that states have “multiple layers of security to protect against domestic abuse.”)
One of Musk’s posts even included an in-depth AI-generated spoof of Democratic candidate and current vice president Kamala Harris. The fake fooage features the voice of someone claiming to be Harris, talking about how he’s a “rent of the mainstream variety” and how he “sounds black” and “acts like he’s celebrating Kwanzaa.” Again, while sharing “synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media” is directly against X’s laws, the post has no community notes or edits. policies.
The combined 50 tweets were viewed nearly 1.2 billion times on X, the CCDH report said.
Based on this and other articles written by Musk, Ahmed asked for a correction Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act 1986 to include social media companies “being held accountable in the same way as any newspaper, broadcaster or business in America.”
CCDH is currently involved in this work Legal battle with Musk and X Corp. X’s parent company filed a federal lawsuit against the nonprofit group in San Francisco, alleging that it illegally hacked its servers and intentionally selected hateful posts as part of a “campaign of intimidation to drive away advertisers,” according to court documents.
We tried to reach out to X for a chance to comment but couldn’t get a full response – the site effectively it was resolved Public relations team under Musk.
