Don Morrison is an author, lecturer, member of The Berkshire Eagle’s Advisory Board, a commentator for NPR’s Robin Hood Radio, European editor of the British magazine Port, an ex-Time Magazine editor, and a longtime part-time resident of the Berkshires.
As war rages between Israel and Hamas, I’ve been devouring reports of the conflict from newspapers, radio and TV. Also, social media, where – according to a recent Pew Research Center survey -- nearly a third of U.S. adults now get much of their news.
But I noticed something weird. Dubious reports and images kept popping up on X, formerly known as Twitter. Some of these posts appeared to depict fighting in Gaza, complete with an Israeli helicopter being shot down.
Turns out the clips were derived from a video game and footage of old fireworks celebrations. Equally fake were alleged photos of a Hamas fighter holding a kidnapped child and of soccer star Ronaldo waving a Palestinian flag.
Those images also popped up on other sites, including Facebook, but were quickly taken down. On X, not so fast.
Much has changed since Elon Musk acquired that platform last year. Besides changing the name, he fired half the staff that polices disinformation. He also started offering Twitter’s Blue Check reliability badge to just about anybody who could pay $8 a month.
The rebranded X now gives incentive payments to users who attract large audiences, thereby increasing the volume of what sells best on social media: conflict, controversy and conspiracy. As of last week, the site started stripping the original headlines from news stories shared by users. That makes it easier to put a fake spin on real events.
Long a free-speech absolutist, Musk seems determined to make X more open to controversial views. Including his.
Shortly after taking over, he began using his personal X account (160 million followers) to criticize government COVID policies, declare war on “big media companies” and call for Ukraine to give up territory to Russia. He compared liberal Jewish investor George Soros to Magneto, Marvel’s Jewish super-villain.
That last one prompted complaints of anti-Semitism. Musk denied them, even though allowing Hamas propaganda on X does not help his case. Nor does his recent claim that the Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913 to combat anti-Semitism, is pressuring X’s advertisers to “kill this platform.”
Which is unlikely to happen. Though X’s revenues and market value have fallen since Musk took over, its monthly active users have nearly doubled to more than 500 million. That’s a lot of influence.
In a scathing report on major social media companies last month, the European Union noted that X had the worst misinformation quotient of them all. Last week, the E.U. warned Musk that X could face penalties in Europe over its Israel-Hamas lapses.
You’ve likely never met Elon Musk, but in Walter Isaacson’s masterful new biography, Elon Musk, the South African-born billionaire comes across as a mercurial man-boy whose visionary ambitions – Reinvent the car! Colonize space! Dig tunnels under cities! – are magnets for controversy.
Isaacson’s book broke the news that Musk derailed a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian naval forces early in their conflict by declining to extend coverage of his Starlink satellite broadband network to the area of conflict.
Musk, of course, is not the only techno-overlord to cause agita. Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook came in a close second on the E.U.’s misinformation list. Jeff Bezos’ s Amazon was accused last week of directing its Alexa cloud-based device to tell users that the 2000 U.S. presidential election was “stolen by a massive amount of election fraud.” Amazon insisted that the false statement was “quickly fixed.”
Well, not exactly. Several days later, I asked Alexa about the alleged election theft. She replied: “I’m not able to answer that question.”
The power of social-media platforms remains largely unchecked. Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act shields them from being sued for removing – or refusing to remove – third-party content. Congressional attempts to end that protection have met with heavy industry lobbying.
I personally experienced the majesty of the social-media industry the other day. I tried to report a blatantly bogus claim – something about Hamas being financed by the Biden Administration. I was informed that X’s permissible reasons for removing a post no longer include false or misleading information.
How can we protect ourselves from this malarky? The internet is full of tips, such as: See if the story has been picked up by reputable news sites, or whether a fact-checking outfit like Snopes or Factcheck.org has weighed in on it. If the post contains a questionable photo, run a check on Google Images or Tin Eye to find its original source.
Also, get a life. I’ve been reducing my own presence on X. That means missing some personal news from family and friends, as well as Musk’s ever-entertaining comments. But I sure do have a lot of free time now.
And, in these troubling days, there’s so much else to read. Stuff that’s actually true.
