Researchers say changes to verification, safety policies make the site an unreliable source for news.
Unverified photos and videos depicting military violence in Israel and Gaza swirled on X hours after the Hamas gunmen’s attack.
Other accounts posted military footage that actually originated from video games. And a handful of viral falsehoods were pushed by far-right pundits on the platform, a common tactic for increasing engagement. Though falsehoods about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have spread on social media platforms across the internet, the researchers said the effect on X stood out as false posts became unavoidable.
Earlier on Monday, X’s safety account posted another message suggesting the Community Notes feature will help users understand what they’re seeing. But the platforms have a responsibility to create a safe environment for their users, including mitigating the risk of their tools becoming a threat to the public “by amplifying misinformation and hate, and distorting the lens through which so many people see the world,” especially in times of crisis, Ahmed added.
But no such statement has ever appeared on the US government’s website. The dateline and details in the screenshot were manipulated, copying a White House statement in July that announced financial aid for Ukraine, according to an independent misinformation researcher who posted a fact-check online. The unsubstantiated claim collected 2.5 million views on X and spread widely on Meta Platform Inc’s Facebook, through an article published by The Gateway Pundit, a far-right website that often spreads conspiracy theories, which picked up the unproven claim.
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