Elon Musk says X’s election interference team ‘are gone’
Just days ago the European Union said X is “the platform with the largest ratio of mis/disinformation”.
Sarah Taaffe-Maguire
Business reporter @taaffems
Thursday 28 September 2023 15:41, UK
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Elon Musk has announced his social media company X, formally known as Twitter, has removed the team monitoring election misinformation.
The tool to report misinformation has been taken away – except for in the European Union – prompting concern from thinktank Reset Australia ahead of the country’s aboriginal rights referendum next month.
In a post on the platform Musk said the election integrity team was undermining election integrity.
“Yeah, they’re gone”, he added.
His comment was in response to reporting saying the ability to report election misinformation has been removed, except in the European Union.
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The feature had been rolled out in the US, South Korea and Australia in August 2021 and was expanded last year. Major elections are due to take place in the US and UK in the coming 18 months.
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It comes just days after the European Union’s commissioner implementing a disinformation code, Věra Jourová, said X “is the platform with the largest ratio of mis/disinformation”.
The European Commission had undertaken a six month survey of disinformation across social media sites.
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Musk spoke about plans to charge people for using X in a conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Since Musk bought the site last year misinformation and removal of hate speech have been a topic of contention.
Users may no longer be able to block people from viewing and interacting with their posts, Musk said last month.
X is suing an anti-hate speech group that accused the billionaire of overseeing a rise in abuse and disinformation on the platform.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has been a regular critic of Musk’s stewardship since he bought the company for $44bn (£38bn).
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