EU warning
“War of Ideas”: Elon Musk’s Twitter is the most important platform for Russian propaganda and fake news
Twitter became X under Elon Musk
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The EU wants to use new laws to combat the increase in disinformation and propaganda on social networks. Elon Musk’s X/Twitter platform particularly stands out.
The large online platforms should and want to do more to combat disinformation campaigns. Meta, Microsoft, Google and Tiktok revealed in a report on Tuesday what measures they have taken so far. Elon Musk’s Platform X, formerly known as Twitter, did not participate. The proportion of propaganda and fake news is highest there.
The efforts are primarily about torpedoing Russian attempts to undermine Western democracies with false reports and propaganda, EU Commissioner Věra Jourová made clear when presenting the report. “The Russian state is pushing forward a war of ideas to pollute our information space with half-truths and propaganda,” she said. “This creates the false image that democracy is no better than autocracy.”
Clear pioneer of misinformation
The internet giants, along with 40 other companies, had committed to a common code of conduct to combat this misinformation. Under Elon Musk, his company X, which was taken over in October last year, withdrew from the code. Jourová emphasized that the amount of disinformation is particularly high there.
“X is the platform with the highest proportion of false or disinformation,” she told journalists, according to the Guardian. The report was the first to define clear criteria for the spread of false information so that comparisons could be made across multiple platforms. At almost nine percent, Twitter/X had the highest rate of accounts that spread false information, and these also have a far above-average number of followers. The platform also displays this content significantly more often than others. And: On no other competing website do users interact more with this type of content than on Twitter, the report says.
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Warning to Elon Musk
This should not be a coincidence: Elon Musk bought Twitter with the intention of creating a platform for freedom of expression, and for this purpose he specifically reactivated user accounts that had previously been blocked due to disinformation. From this perspective, his company’s withdrawal from the code only seems like a logical step.
However, the X does not release us from responsibility, says Jourová. “Mr. Musk knows that leaving won’t just get him off the hook,” she believes. “There are also clear legal obligations. So my message to X/Twitter is: you have to stick to them. We will keep an eye on you.”
Sources: Guardian, Techcrunch, EU report