A recent analysis found that the great bulk of widespread false material posted on X (previously Twitter) on the Israel-Hamas war was being promoted by verified users.
Researchers at NewsGuard analyzed the top 250 most-engaged X posts from October 7 to 14 and discovered that 74% of them propagated false or unsubstantiated material about the conflict.
Israel-Hamas War Propaganda on X
NewsGuard, a for-profit group that provides credibility assessments of various news sources, found that one in ten of the 250 postings reviewed in the research propagated misleading or unverified war narratives. These include accusations that CNN fabricated footage of its broadcast team under attack in Israel and clips purporting to show Israeli or Palestinian youngsters in cages, according to the Verge.
Collectively, the 250 posts attracted 1,349,979 interactions, such as likes, reposts, comments, and bookmarks. These were seen over 100 million times worldwide in only one week. Blue-checked X accounts accounted for 186 of the top 250 posts.
Blue check verifications are criticized by NewsGuard in the report for being made available to anybody for $8 per month. Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, the blue checks were a quick and easy way to recognize well-known people like politicians, journalists, and celebrities.
These paid users get algorithmic boosts on the site in addition to the visual legitimacy provided by a blue badge. "While the exact details of how X boosts and downranks (lowering a post's position in users' feeds) is undisclosed and therefore unclear, NewsGuard's analysis suggests that the boost is significant, if not crucial, to claims going viral," the report reads.
Since April, the service has been de-verifying older accounts that have declined to upgrade to a paid plan.
Musk has been touting X as a place for "citizen journalists" and has spoken highly of the platform's Community Notes section for its role in increasing data quality. However, just 79 of the 250 messages were marked as potentially false by the social network's Community Notes system. That is to say, over 70% of the time, Community Notes did not detect or rectify incorrect information.
The results found by NewsGuard are similar to those of NBC News on October 10. It demonstrated how the community fact-checking feature's volunteers could not keep up with the deluge of false material that followed the Hamas attack on Israel, resulting in approval times of hours to days and the failure to label specific postings.
Similar Issue With Other Platforms
Inaccurate information does not only surround X. NewsGuard claims that it also detected incorrect or unverified content concerning the Israel-Hamas conflict on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Telegram, and other platforms.
According to the research, fake news regarding the conflict first became popular on X before reaching out to other social media sites like TikTok and Instagram.
Global authorities are aware of the problems. The European Union (EU) launched an inquiry into X last week due to the "alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation." Similar EU investigations have been begun against Meta and TikTok.
