A majority of the viral posts spreading misinformation on the Israel-Hamas war on X (formerly known as Twitter) are coming from verified accounts, a new study reveals.
These accounts display a blue checkmark and require users to pay a monthly subscription fee.
According to the study from NewsGuard, 74 percent of the “most viral false or unsubstantiated claims” about the conflict came from such accounts.
The study examined 250 of the most-engaged posts promoting incorrect or unverified information between October 7th and 14th. Of the posts, 186 (74 percent) came from verified accounts.
Collectively, these posts received more than 1.3 million engagements and were viewed more than 100 million times across the globe. The false or unproven claims include CNN staging footage of its news crew being attacked by Israel and footage of Palestinian or Israeli children in cages.
Content moderation is not something owner Elon Musk seems to care too much about. As NewsGuard points out, Musk often turns to Community Notes when asked about the issue.
Community Notes allows select users to add context and information to some posts to increase clarity. However, the study found only 79 of the 250 posts had a Community Note. “That means that a note appeared approximately 32 percent of the time on some of the platform’s most prominent and harmful misinformation posts,” the study states.
“NewsGuard also found that most of the false narratives relating to the Israel-Hamas War so far appear to go viral on X before they spread to other platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.”
NewsGuard notes it also found unsubstantiated information about the conflict on several other social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Telegram. But, the focus on X comes from the platform’s public reduction of moderation efforts.
In a recent post on the platform, Musk said, “X is open source news.”
𝕏 is open source news.
That is the right way to think about it.
Excellent analysis by Sinofsky. https://t.co/6MjnXn5A9M
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2023
Image credit: Shutterstock
Source: NewsGuard
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