Skip Navigation

Elon Musk Is Spreading Election Misinformation, but X’s Fact Checkers Are Long Gone

www.nytimes.com Elon Musk Is Spreading Election Misinformation, but X’s Fact Checkers Are Long Gone

Civil rights lawyers and Democrats are sounding alarms about Mr. Musk’s claims about voting. The Biden campaign called his posts “profoundly irresponsible.”

Elon Musk Is Spreading Election Misinformation, but X’s Fact Checkers Are Long Gone

In the spring of 2020, when President Donald J. Trump wrote messages on Twitter warning that increased reliance on mail-in ballots would lead to a “rigged election,” the platform ran a corrective, debunking his claims.

“Get the facts about mail-in voting,” a content label read. “Experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud,” the hyperlinked article declared.

This month, Elon Musk, who has since bought Twitter and rebranded it X, echoed several of Mr. Trump’s claims about the American voting system, putting forth distorted and false notions that American elections were wide open for fraud and illegal voting by noncitizens.

This time, there were no fact checks. And the X algorithm — under Mr. Musk’s direct control — helped the posts reach large audiences, in some cases drawing many millions of views.

Since taking control of the site, Mr. Musk has dismantled the platform’s system for flagging false election content, arguing it amounted to election interference.

Archive

115

You're viewing a single thread.

115 comments
  • So cut his fucking security clearance already for fucks sake what the fuck even is this pussy shit.

    If drug use and election disinformation aren't enough to kill his contracts, then the stupid fucking Democrats have no fucking balls.

    • the stupid fucking Democrats have no fucking balls. it's just true. they don't have what it takes to stand up to fascism. we need to fight them ourselves

      • they don’t have what it takes to stand up to fascism.

        Man, what clued you in? For me it was it the bipartisan support for fascist leadership in Israel or because the Democrats keep going "well we have to make deals with fascists and limit your rights, because that's democracy." Cue the law they passed for their Republican buddies on a "deal" causing way more problems, never getting repealed, and then them acting like its a fucking win somehow.

115 comments