According to a report by the non-profit Center for Countering Digital Hate, false or misleading claims by billionaire Elon Musk about the U.S. election have garnered 2 billion views on the social media platform X this year.
Experts on election misinformation have warned that X is playing a crucial role in spreading false information, especially about battleground states likely to influence the election outcome.
A spokesperson for X defended the platform’s Community Notes feature, which allows users to add context to posts, as a more effective tool for identifying misleading content compared to traditional warning labels.
Since Musk’s acquisition of the company, formerly known as Twitter, he has scaled back content moderation and cut thousands of jobs, while publicly supporting former President Donald Trump, who is in a tight race against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
With nearly 203 million followers, Musk’s extensive reach creates “network effects,” enabling content on X to spread to other platforms like Reddit and Telegram, said Kathleen Carley, a disinformation expert from Carnegie Mellon University. “X is a conduit from one platform to another,” Carley stated.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate reported that at least 87 of Musk’s posts this year promoted election-related claims labeled false or misleading by fact-checkers, collectively drawing 2 billion views.
In Pennsylvania, a key swing state, X users have spread false claims about election interference by highlighting instances where incomplete voter registration forms were flagged, according to Philip Hensley-Robin of Common Cause.
Some X accounts implied “that there was voter fraud, when in fact, we know very clearly that election officials and election administrators … were following the rules,” Hensley-Robin explained.
Additionally, Cyabra, an AI-driven disinformation detection firm, reported that an X account with 117,000 followers helped spread a fake video falsely depicting Pennsylvania mail-in ballots for Trump being destroyed.
X’s spokesperson stated that the platform had taken action against accounts sharing the video.