Further reducing the number of users will certainly stop X/Twitter's slide into obliviation, right? Elon Musk considers removing X form Europe over new EU law https://www.livemint.com/news/world...pe-over-new-eu-law-report-11697683654016.html Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X (formerly Twitter), on Wednesday announced that he is considering removing the service from Europe in response to a new internet platform regulation in the region, according to a report published by Reuters. People familiar with the information stated that the billionaire had discussed removing the app's availability in the region or blocking users in the European Union from accessing it. In August this year, the European Union adopted the Digital Services Act (DSA) which sets forth rules for preventing the spread of harmful content, banning or limiting certain user-targeting practices, and sharing some internal data with regulators and associated researchers, among other things. European Union industry chief Thierry Breton on October 11 urged X owner Elon Musk to tackle disinformation on the social media platform in the wake of Hamas' attack on Israel in order to comply with the new EU online content rules. Breton on Tuesday noted that X (formerly Twitter) is being used for disseminating illegal content and disinformation in the EU. Musk responded to Breton's post, saying, “Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports. Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that the public can see them. Merci beaucoup." Breton responded by saying that it was up to Musk to show that he was walking the talk, while adding that the EU would rigorously enforce compliance with the DSA. “Vu, merci. You are well aware of your users’ — and authorities’— reports on fake content and glorification of violence. Up to you to demonstrate that you walk the talk. My team remains at your disposal to ensure DSA compliance, which the EU will continue to enforce rigorously," he added.
"Open source and transparent" fucking lol. Elon Mush doesn't realize he weaned people off the platform by rendering it unusable, making his thread empty to users in EU.
Musk simply wants to make money off of disinformation. But he is even failing to do this well. Musk’s X cashes in on ‘superspreaders’ of Israel-Hamas misinformation, new report finds https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/19/media/musk-israel-hamas-misinformation/index.html Some of the biggest peddlers of misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war on Elon Musk’s X platform are premium, so-called “verified” accounts that pay the social media company formerly known as Twitter to promote their posts to boost visibility, a report released Thursday found. Establishing the truth in any conflict can be difficult as competing sides push contradictory narratives — but some claims that are objectively and clearly false are still going viral and being seen millions of times by users of X, due in part to changes made to the platform by Musk, NewsGuard, an information analysis company, found. NewsGuard identified seven accounts it describes as “misinformation superspreaders,” which have shared widely debunked claims about the conflict. All of the accounts, NewsGuard said, are taking advantage of changes made to X’s verification policy, which promotes posts from users who pay the company $8 a month. Verified users are also eligible to receive payments from the platform, financially incentivizing posts from the users who are actively spreading misinformation. Some of the most widely shared myths on X about the war, according to NewsGuard, include videos from previous, unrelated conflicts, which are recycled and used to make false claims about Israel and Hamas (CNN has also debunked some of these videos). NewsGuard said it analyzed 250 of the most engaged-with posts from the first week of the conflict that promoted some of the most common false or unsubstantial claims about the conflict. “Collectively, posts advancing these myths received 1,349,979 engagements and were cumulatively viewed by more than 100 million times globally in just one week,” NewsGuard said in Thursday’s report. The group said 186 of the 250 posts were sent by premium X accounts. CNN has not been able to independently verify the data and has asked NewsGuard to provide its supporting information. Soon after NewsGuard published its report Thursday, Musk posted on X that the company “should be disbanded immediately.” CNN has reached out to X and Musk for further comment. The European Union last week opened an investigation into X over the spread of disinformation and illegal content on the platform related to the Israel-Hamas war. X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a letter to the EU last week that the company had “redistributed resources and refocused internal teams who are working around the clock to address this rapidly evolving situation.” The EU recently enacted new laws governing illegal content and disinformation on major social media platforms. The EU has formally asked X rivals Meta and TikTok for more information on the work they are doing to remove potentially violative content, but the bloc has not opened an investigation into either company. Blue verified check marks were previously an indication that X had verified that the person or organization behind an account were who they said they were. But Musk changed the policy earlier this year to eliminate the verification process and make the blue badge available to virtually anyone willing to pay an $8 monthly subscription for X Premium. X also prioritizes posts from paying users, meaning they are likely to be seen by more people. In May, there was a brief dip in the stock market after verified accounts on X shared fake images of a purported “explosion” near the Pentagon.
Elon Musk being a child again. Elon Musk’s X/Twitter removes the New York Times’ gold verification badge https://fortune.com/2023/10/20/elon-musk-x-twitter-removes-new-york-times-gold-verification-badge/ Elon Musk’s X removes the New York Times’ verification badge The unexplained decision removes the only symbol distinguishing the news organization from impostors and comes amid a flood of false information related to the Israel-Gaza war, some of which Musk has personally endorsed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/10/19/x-twitter-nyt-dispute-musk/ New York Times loses verification on X after complaints from Elon Musk https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/new-york-times-loses-verification-complaints-elon-musk
As outlined by the EU, X/Twitter under Musk is the biggest social media disinformation source on the web. Under Musk with "verified accounts" which are boosted -- the entire site is basically designed to push misinformation. Why would any advertiser place ads on Musk's Twitter? Verified Accounts on X Spread 74% of Wartime Misinformation 'This is another nail in the coffin for X' among advertisers https://www.adweek.com/media/verified-accounts-x-spread-wartime-misinformation/ As the latest Israel and Hamas war reaches its two-week mark, an overwhelming surge of videos and photos claiming to portray the ongoing turmoil has inundated social media platforms. So far, Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) is struggling to combat wartime misinformation, making advertisers even more cautious about returning to the beleaguered platform. The platform’s “verified” users, who now pay to have a blue check, pushed 74% of X’s most viral false Israel-Hamas war-related claims, according to a NewsGuard analysis shared with Adweek. “This is another nail in the coffin for X in terms of deteriorating advertisers’ trust,” said Ruben Schreurs, chief strategy officer at independent marketing and media consultancy Ebiquity. “And they’re enforcing their decision not to return to X.” In its first week of conflict beginning Oct. 7, the news rating company analyzed the top 250 posts containing misinformation that received the most likes, reposts, replies and bookmarks, and found 186 accounts of the 250—74%—were verified by X. NewsGuard identifies misinformation using a combination of humans and artificial intelligence. The verified accounts promoted 10 false narratives, such as claims that Ukraine sold weapons to Hamas and a video of Israeli senior officials being captured by Hamas. Collectively, posts promoting false claims garnered 1,349,979 likes, reposts, replies and bookmarks, and were viewed by more than 100 million people globally in a week, per NewsGuard. Combating wartime misinformation has been X’s biggest content moderation test as advertisers grow increasingly leery about the platform. In March, Musk began un-checking accounts and selling verification (blue check marks), a feature that was once reserved for high-profile users and professional journalists. Since then, Musk has also slashed the number of content and safety policy positions within the company. “That decision [to let people pay for verification] turned out to be a boon for bad actors sharing misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war,” according to NewsGuard. Under Musk’s leadership, advertisers have grown increasingly uneasy, leading to a stop in ad spend. Since the acquisition, the platform’s ad revenue has declined each month, per Reuters. Meanwhile, ad rates have plummeted by more than 75% and X hit a three-year low, with CPMs as low as 61 cents as of August, according to the 2023 State of Social Media CPM report by Gupta Media. Former NBCUniversal ad chief Linda Yaccarino’s hiring as CEO in June instilled some degree of confidence among advertisers, but the rampant outbreaks of disturbing content on X have further gutted advertisers’ trust, three sources told Adweek. Following discussions with senior leadership across its 75 clients, “the absolute overwhelming majority of our brand advertisers are incredibly concerned with the ongoing misinformation,” Schreurs said. Audi and Sony are both Ebiquity clients—the former ceased organic posting on X in November last year, while Sony has continued. Adweek has contacted X for a response. EU’s involvement a ‘key driver of concern’ The platform’s struggle to curb rampant misinformation has brand leaders even more cautious to return. “Most brand partners hoped that Yaccarino would bring some maturity back to the platform,” Christopher Spong, associate director of social media and communications at media agency Collective Measures, told Adweek. “It quickly became clear that Musk was still running the show.” Meanwhile, European regulators last week made a formal request for information from Musk’s platform concerning its procedures and practices to address hate speech, dissemination of misinformation and the presence of violent terrorist content pertaining to the Israel-Hamas war. The flagging by the EU was a “key driver of immediate concern” for brand partners at Ebiquity. In response, Yaccarino sent a letter to the EU outlining the platform’s efforts to curb war-related disinformation, including “redistributing resources” and “refocusing internal teams.” X has introduced new enhancements to its Community Notes, a crowdsourced fact-checking feature and has taken action to remove hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts. However, per NewsGuard’s analysis, Community Notes failed to successfully debunk misinformation 68% of the time. Only 79 of the 250 posts that perpetuated wartime misinformation were flagged by the platform with Community Notes.
SCOTUS overturned the nonsense from these clowns. The Biden administration is free to communicate with social media companies. Biden gets Supreme Court win on social media case but Justice Alito warns of 'censorship' In a dissent, conservative Justice Samuel Alito warned of 'government censorship' and called the decision 'highly disturbing.' https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...social-media-over-disinformation/71145309007/ WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Friday tentatively sided with the Biden administration and agreed to decide a dispute about whether officials in the White House and federal agencies violated the First Amendment when they leaned on social media companies to suppress content about the election and COVID-19. Amid a war between Israel and Hamas and a presidential election, the Supreme Court's move Friday allows the Biden administration to continue to interact with social media platforms such as Facebook and X to request that they remove disinformation. By also agreeing to decide the underlying issues in coming months, the high court is once against thrusting itself into a divisive fight at the intersection of social media and the government. "This is an immensely important case," said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. "These are momentous, thorny issues, and how the court resolves them will have broad implications for the digital public sphere." Without comment, a majority of the justices halted a lower court's order that blocked federal agencies from "coercing" social media companies like Facebook and X to take down or curtail the spread of social media posts. Alito calls Biden efforts 'government censorship' Three members of the court's conservative wing − Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch − said they would have sided with the states and social media users who filed the lawsuit. "Government censorship of private speech is antithetical to our democratic form of government, and therefore today’s decision is highly disturbing," Alito wrote in a dissent. "At this time in the history of our country, what the court has done, I fear, will be seen by some as giving the government a green light to use heavy-handed tactics to skew the presentation of views on the medium that increasingly dominates the dissemination of news." The Republican state attorneys general who filed the lawsuit said they were pleased the litigation would be fully aired at the Supreme Court. The court is expected to decide the case by the end of this term, which runs through June. “This is the worst First Amendment violation in our nation's history," Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, said in a statement. "We look forward to dismantling Joe Biden’s vast censorship enterprise at the nation’s highest court." Louisiana Solicitor General Liz Murrill said that the court's decision "brings us one step closer to reestablishing the protections guaranteed to us in the Constitution and under the First Amendment." It's about disinformation, Biden lawyers counter The Justice Department declined to comment on Friday. But the administration has countered in its briefs that officials merely asked those platforms to remove harmful disinformation. The decision to remove that content was ultimately made by the companies themselves, not the government. Barring the government from flagging disinformation, the administration argued, could have enormous consequences for how Americans interact online. “It is undisputed that the content-moderation decisions at issue in this case were made by private social-media companies, such as Facebook and YouTube,” the administration told the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court's action on Friday holds in place the status quo before the courts got involved, allowing the administration to proceed − for now − as it had been doing before. By agreeing to hear arguments over and decide the underlying First Amendment questions in the case, the Supreme Court is once again thrusting itself into the messy and heated political debate over online content in the middle of a presidential election. First Amendment central theme this year at Supreme Court Born of conservative frustration with social media moderation practices, the lawsuit by the Republican attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana and several individual users accused the administration of coercing the platforms to remove content that was unfavorable to Democrats. That included posts about the 2020 election, the origins of COVID-19 and the Hunter Biden laptop story. “When...federal agencies ‘flag’ Americans’ speech to social-media platforms to urge them to take it down, they induce platforms to take action against private speech that the platforms otherwise would not take,” the plaintiffs told the Supreme Court in a brief this month. The intersection of social media and politics has emerged as significant theme for the Supreme Court this year. Justices will hear arguments Oct. 31 in a pair of challenges dealing with whether public officials may block constituents on social media. Separately, the high court will decide two suits challenging laws in Texas and Florida that would limit the ability of platforms like Facebook, YouTube and X to moderate content. The state laws at issue in the cases, both of which have been temporarily blocked by federal courts, severely limit the ability of social media companies to kick users off their platforms or remove individual posts.