Elon Musk has made drastic cuts to the ‘election integrity group’ at X (previously Twitter), a division that was liable for combating the unfold of misinformation on-line, and in addition scrapped a characteristic that lets customers self-report false political statements.
The announcement was made simply weeks after the platform stated it had plans to develop its security groups, forward of subsequent 12 months’s US presidential election. Musk took to X to announce that the group had been disbanded by way of a sometimes blunt assertion.
Following the group cuts, a characteristic that permits customers to report misinformation has additionally been faraway from the X platform.
Oh you imply the “Election Integrity” Group that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.September 27, 2023
Musk acquired the platform final 12 months for $44 billion, and his newest transfer raises recent considerations about X’s skill to handle data and content material surrounding vital political occasions.
It follows a European Fee research revealed by TrustLab, which revealed that X has the best ratio of misinformation unfold throughout its content material. The research analyzed content material throughout six social media platforms – Fb, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and X – that appeared in Poland, Slovakia, and Spain.
The cuts to X’s election integrity group noticed greater than half of the worldwide group laid off. It’s unsure how many individuals stay on the group. This contains the division based mostly in Eire the place X’s Co-lead of ‘risk disruption’, Aaron Rodericks, was based mostly.
Just lately, X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino had instructed The Monetary Occasions that the platform was “increasing the protection and election groups all world wide to give attention to combating issues like manipulation, surfacing of inauthentic accounts and intently monitoring the platform for any rising threats”.
This got here after Elon Musk urged in a live-streamed interview that X may begin charging all customers “a small month-to-month fee” to make use of the app, past the present Twitter Blue.
The characteristic that allowed customers to report faux information on the platform has been absent for the reason that launch of the research. It was observed by Reset Australia, a company that campaigns for democracy in digital media, which addressed considerations in an open letter to X.
You possibly can nonetheless report X posts that you just contemplate to be spam and hateful; nevertheless, there’s presently no choice to report electoral misinformation. Within the build-up to the US Presidential election, different firms, together with Google, have carried out plans to safeguard electoral data on-line, most lately in its transfer to eradicate AI deepfakes through the presidential race by implementing AI transparency insurance policies.
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