X’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict has come under scrutiny after a “deluge” of fake posts and Elon Musk’s recommendation of war coverage from accounts that have made false claims or antisemitic comments.
The owner of X, formerly Twitter, recommended two accounts on Sunday. He wrote: “For following the war in real-time, @WarMonitors and @sentdefender are good. It is also worth following direct sources on the ground. Please add interesting options in the replies below.”
The @WarMonitors account told a user in June “go worship a jew lil bro” while both accounts helped to spread a false claim in May that an explosion had occurred at the Pentagon. Emerson T Brooking, a researcher at the Atlantic Council’s digital forensic research lab, said the @sentdefender account regularly posted “wrong and unverifiable things”.
Musk has since deleted his post and disputed a War Monitor post describing Gaza fighters as “martyrs”. He wrote: “While reporting both sides is fair, please use maximally accurate words or I must withdraw my recommendation to follow your account.”
Fake social media accounts are spreading false information about the Israel-Hamas conflict, with X and TikTok among the affected platforms, according to disinformation specialists.
…You ever wonder if Musk inadvertently benefited from being backed into buying Twitter, merely by virtue of much of the media’s addiction to Twitter leading to their incessant reporting on it and his BS on there?
It’s like Trump all over again, rather than any particular skill at media manipulation, a lot of the media can’t help but report on these assholes because of a mix of the clicks/views they draw, and their own weird social media addictions.