Elon Musk issued 'disinformation' warning over X's response to Israel attacks

11 October 2023 , 09:42

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Elon Musk is warned over "fake information" about Israel attacks (Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Elon Musk has been warned that "fake and misleading" information about the Israel and Hamas conflict is being spread on X, formerly known as Twitter, in a letter from the EU.

X says it is trying to take action on a flood of posts sharing graphic media, violent speech and hateful conduct about the war and is treating the crisis with its highest level of response. And the EU's digital policy chief Thierry Breton has written to Mr Musk about fake and manipulated imagery.

This includes "repurposed old images of unrelated armed conflicts or military footage that actually originated from video games," said the letter to Mr Musk from Mr Breton on Tuesday. "This appears to be manifestly false or misleading information."

Mr Breton also warned Musk that authorities have been flagging "potentially illegal content" that could violate EU laws and "you must be timely, diligent and objective" in removing it when warranted.

Thierry Breton wrote to Elon Musk (AFP via Getty Images)

In a post late on Monday from X's safety team did say that there had been more than 50 million posts on the terrorist attack. It stated: "In the past couple of days, we've seen an increase in daily active users on @X in the conflict area, plus there have been more than 50 million posts globally focusing on the weekend's terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas. As the events continue to unfold rapidly, a cross-company leadership group has assessed this moment as a crisis requiring the highest level of response."

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That includes continuing a policy frequently championed by Mr Musk of letting users help rate what might be misinformation, which causes those posts to include a note of context but not disappear from the platform.

The struggle to identify reliable sources for news about the war was not helped over the weekend by Musk, who on Sunday posted the names of two accounts he said were "good" for "following the war in real-time". But then analyst Emerson Brooking of the Atlantic Council called one of those accounts "absolutely poisonous".

Journalists and X users also pointed out that both accounts had previously shared a fake AI-generated image of an explosion at the Pentagon, and that one of them had posted numerous antisemitic comments in recent months. Mr Musk later deleted his post. Mr Brooking posted on X that Musk had enabled fake war reporting by abandoning the blue check verification system for trusted accounts and allowing anyone to buy a blue check.

Tim Hanlon