Elon Musk Is Spreading Election Misinformation, but X’s Fact Checkers Are Long Gone
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.”
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.
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Good luck in November, America. Seems you'll need it more than ever.
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I was going to send my drone to Ukraine but I might need it here. Hilarious the maga folks think they’re the only ones with weapons
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I am fairly sure Dump will win. I'm already prepping my brain for 4 years of idiots, scheming, sexism, racism, and all hail God. I'm sorry everyone, we have a lot of raging dumb idiots here
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4 years of idiots, scheming, sexism, racism, and all hail God.
If you think it will end after your years, you're not prepping anywhere near hard enough.
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Damn, person just expressing their opinion and preparing for the worst and they get downvoted. They weren't even supporting the win. The hive is buzzing.
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I’m don’t think he will stay out of hospital for that long.
I can see him escaping justice due to ‘ill health’ but also having to give up the idea of running.
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Orange man ftw 24
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This was the plan the whole time. Duh
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Right, 98% of it wasn't anything about making money, improving the service, building something new, or allowing free speech.
He just wanted to make sure Twitter said what he wanted it to.
It's been wildly successful on that front. Way way way more successful than, say, Truth Social.
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Billionaires buying media. Just one more thing showing that democracy and insane wealth inequality are not compatible.
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Imo he definitely bought that position of power for money. Just not overtly for Twitter.
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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.
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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
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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.
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3rd party 2024 and end the MIC
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Next week- Elon blames Trump's loss on voter fraud instigated by Jews working with Black people.
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I feel like we need to add a leprechaun for good measure.
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Why? Is Elon also bigoted against leprechauns?
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It’s true, I saw some tweets calling musk a genius.
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It feels like why he wanted the site lol. The site is just a few steps above posting on truth social at this point.
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Yes, that was his goal.
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“Oh, boo hoo,” Harmeet K. Dhillon, a lawyer whose firm represents Mr. Trump
I mean, they are basically just good old fashioned trolls - sadists, sociopaths and narcissists and morons. And they are winning.
We shouldn't have been so mean to Elon. I blame reddit for this /s
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As long as Trump gets elected, it's money well spent I assume.
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Now that's the real reason for dropping 44 billion on a zero profit only-costs platform. It already got Milei elected on Argentina, US and Mexico are next
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It's an oldschool move: buy the biggest newspaper in town to crush opposing voices. And later: radio stations, TV stations, TV networks, and so on. Social media is just the latest iteration.
Upshot is: If this is true, it's kind of a big deal. It means that people banding together to share their opinions and taking jerks like this to task is worth billions to shut down. That's how big a threat everyone is.
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Everyone needs to take more responsibility for the nonsense they read instead of blaming it all on the platform or Elon.
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Really? This is the same as "criminals should stop being criminals instead of having people complaining to the police that they don't do their work"
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the mods on Lemmy don't care about election misinformation either. I have had a thousand people tell me that voting for cornel west counts as a vote for trump, and I have never seen it removed.
hell, I was told this by a moderator for c/politics.
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They weren't wrong. There is a reason West is getting donations from conservatives like Harlan Crow that oppose his views.
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They are wrong. You can stamp your feet and insist otherwise because you're scared of losing, but they're wrong.
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But they are wrong. If someone is in a solidly blue state like California, a vote for Cornell West literally means nothing because of the Electoral College. Arguably, if you're in a safe state like that, why not vote with your conscience? (I'm not here to make comment on West's politics, I don't follow him, I'm making a point about the Electoral College and Presidential elections)
I can understand having the attitude of "Well, there's not really a lot of safe options" when they're a swing state or hell even a red state (not a bad thing to try to make a dent against them on their own home turf), but it seems to be really talking down to a lot of Democrat voters who live in Democratic strongholds whose vote basically is meaningless because of the Electoral College but despite this they're being bullied into voting the Democrat choice for President.
Now, even in a blue state, voting matters locally and not just giving your vote out to just any Tom, Dick or Harry matters. But a Presidential election where we continue to use the Electoral College to decide the President and not the popular vote? That's just dismissive of the reality of how anti-Democratic the Electoral College actually is.
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You being too dense to understand what they're saying doesn't make it misinformation.
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I know what they're saying. they're being dishonest.
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There's still the open version of fact checking: community notes
What are the facts about this? That it doesn't happen...that often?
There's no real time enforcement for it to mean anything. The votes are tallied in real time, and a winner is announced, then months to years later people (who are caught) are prosecuted?
Can someone point out why mail in voting with no ID is a good thing? I'm genuinely curious
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Can someone point out why mail in voting with no ID is a good thing?
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You did not need an ID to vote for almost the entire history of the U.S. and no one had a problem with that.
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Oregon has been entirely vote by mail since 1998. A voter ID is not required. There have been no significant issues.
So you point out why mail-in voting with no ID is a bad thing. Because it has been demonstrated to work without problems.
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The military has had it since the civil war.
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Because we've all seen how fraudulent people can be right?
This is minor, but take a video game for example - even with nothing to gain, lots of systems have to be put in place because people go out of their way to game the systems and cheat.
Why would something with actual consequences be any different? Why wouldn't you have even the simplest system in the way of that?
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Oh wow, your comment history is almost entirely defending Elon Musk. That must be exhausting.
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guess the new fact checkers are outside twitter but defending musks honour instead
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Is it?
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If you’re still “genuinely curious” about the voter ID issue that has been discussed to death for nearly five years, please do yourself a favor and stay away from any political discussions.
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Community notes aren't going to be useful if anybody with an IQ above room temperature has already left the platform.
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Wtf is wrong with you
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