Since the start of the recent Israel-Hamas conflict, disturbing videos of kidnappings and armed actions have quickly proliferated on social sites like X (formerly known as Twitter). With such a volume of false accounts, it has been difficult for viewers to determine the accuracy of what is transpiring there. X noted that a number of these posts were false, but CNBC discovered that numerous reproductions of the same videos and titles were allowed to stand without any flagging.
From the start of this weekend's conflict between Israel and Hamas, graphic footage of abductions and military operations has spread quickly on social media platforms including X, formerly known as Twitter. However, the dissemination of misinformation on the platform has created difficulties for users in understanding the situation in the region.For instance, X flagged several posts over the weekend as being false or misleading, including a video which purportedly showed Israeli airstrikes against Hamas in Gaza. The most widely shared posts were flagged by the platform, but CNBC's review revealed that dozens of posts featuring the same video and caption were not marked by X. This comes days after NBC News reported that X had made personnel reductions in the departments focused on combatting disinformation and safeguarding election integrity.Just prior to the Hamas attack, X had removed headlines from links on the platform, making it harder to tell external links apart from regular photos posted on X. Prior to Elon Musk's take-over of Twitter, the company had allocated considerable resources to tackling manipulated or false information. After he assumed ownership and changed the platform's name, Musk made cuts to the teams devoted to battling falsity and censured the platform's former collaboration on Covid-19 deception with the US authorities.With Musk at the helm, X has prioritized user-driven content marking with Community Notes (previously labelled Birdwatch). Nonetheless, a September study from the EU found that despite this feature - which provides crowdsourced context to posts - disinformation was more discoverable on X than any other social media network and gained more engagement than on other outlets comparatively.Alex Goldenberg, a researcher from the Network Contagion Research Institute who examines hate and right-wing extremism on social media and in the real world, told CNBC that even before Musk's reign Twitter had difficulties dealing with disinformation not written in English. "I've often observed that misinformation and incitement to violence in the English language are given attention, yet those in Arabic are usually ignored," Goldenberg mentioned. He added that NCRI have noticed an increase in "recycled videos and photos from past conflicts being intentionally linked with this particular conflict."Consumers have noticed the effects of the adjustments to X's content moderation, and some have fallen victim to sharing bogus information on the website.Paul Bernal, an IT law professor at the University of East Anglia in England, commented on X on Monday: "It's remarkable how Elon Musk has destroyed what was perhaps the best thing about Twitter: the capacity to get fairly precise and reliable data in real time when there's a crisis."On Sunday, a British politician shared a video purportedly from a BBC correspondent, with the words: "Following some pretty appalling equivocation and whataboutary from the BBC yesterday and this morning, now this from a BBC journalist".This video was not from a BBC correspondent; Clarkson wrote Monday that his "views on the BBC remain" but admitted that the initial post was not from a BBC journalist.In spite of the fact that government authentication gives certain accounts a silver checkmark, legitimization for notable persons and reporters has been done away with and replaced with paid Twitter Blue confirmation. This has made it "even trickier to know if the messenger of a certain message or its content is trusty," Goldenberg said.Propaganda videos created by Hamas have also been circulating on X. Even though the terrorist association is prohibited from most social media networks, including X, it still keeps on sharing videos on Telegram. Those videos - including some from the recent attack on Israel - are frequently re-shared onto X, Goldenberg told CNBC. And this can have tangible consequences."As we've seen in the past, particularly in May 2021, when tensions in the area rise there is a high probability of a rise in hate crimes against the Jewish community outside the region," Goldenberg said.Posts and opinions from users with paid authentication allegedly become more visible on X, and some of the flagged deceptive posts have been from those verified users. Musk himself has multiplied such posts on a few occasions - including ones regarding the conflict in Ukraine and more recently with respect to Israel. On Sunday, Musk encouraged his 160 million followers to follow two accounts that he said had "good" information regarding the conflict.One of those users had in the past made anti-Semitic posts, one of them informing a Twitter user to "mind your own business, jew". Musk later deleted his post publicizing the account.Correction: This article has been edited to accurately display Alex Goldenberg's statement about English-language disinformation on X and Twitter. A preceding edition contained an error in the transcription.
Comments