yesterday night time, what’s left of the Trust and Safety team at X (previously Twitter) introduced the measures it was taking to try to curb the virulent spread of disinformation across the Israel-Hamas struggle on its platform.
The assertion, issued three days after the battle started, reads: “Because the occasions proceed to unfold quickly, a cross-company management group has assessed this second as a disaster requiring the best degree of response.”
One one who doesn’t look like a part of this disaster group is X proprietor Elon Musk.
As an alternative of tackling the damaging disinformation drawback on his platform, Musk as an alternative spent yeterday night time into this morning continuing to spread disinformation about the conflict, conversing with a known QAnon promoter, boosting anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, and laughing at a video detailing how transphobic content material on X can get you new followers.
Musk additionally promoted a brand new function that enables X Premium subscribers to see solely replies from different folks keen to pay $8 a month, which Musk stated would “help a lot with spam bots” on the platform—a problem Musk previously claimed he had already all however eradicated.
“If profitable, X will evolve to be the collective consciousness of humanity or, extra precisely, the human-machine collective,” Musk posted in reply to a follower who stated he was doing a fantastic job operating the corporate.
In the meantime, disinformation in regards to the battle within the Center East continues to rage on the platform, pushed primarily by verified accounts.
Yesterday night, X’s Belief and Security group, which is currently leaderless after Ella Irwin resigned in June, wrote on X that it had “eliminated newly created Hamas-affiliated accounts” and was working with the World Web Discussion board to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), an trade physique that helps coordinate content material moderation throughout social media platforms, to “try to stop terrorist content material from being distributed on-line.”
The Security group’s assertion additionally lauded the user-generated Group Notes system and stated new accounts had been being enrolled to handle the flood of disinformation on the platform. The Security group additionally revealed that it had eliminated “a number of a whole lot accounts for trying to control trending matters.”
Since Musk took management of the platform just below a 12 months in the past, he has restructured it to encourage engagement over every little thing else. Consequently, accounts that subscribe to X Premium now have a financial incentive to submit content material that’s participating no matter how truthful it’s. This was highlighted clearly on yesterday night time when, similtaneously the Security group posted its replace, a brand new viral piece of disinformation was spreading unchecked on X.
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