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X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, was thrown into chaos over the weekend as misinformation spread on the social media site about ongoing attacks and bombings in Israel and Palestine.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino claimed Monday night that the ongoing situation on the platform required her to cancel an upcoming conference in order to “focus fully on the security of the X platform.”
The cancellation follows Yacarino’s disastrous appearance at another tech conference, which has been panned by critics and supporters alike. For context, the biggest source of misinformation on the platform over the weekend came from its boss and X owner Elon Musk.
X spreads false information over a critical period of time.
On Saturday, as news broke of the group Hamas launching a massive attack on Israel, X was immediately put to the test.
While Musk officially acquired the platform known as Twitter nearly a year ago, a groundbreaking global event of this scale had yet to occur under his ownership. Twitter has long been known as the go-to place for real-time information on current events. That’s why the platform has historically been so popular with journalists and the media — Musk’s two groups have feuded a lot since taking office.
X failed the test. Misinformation, propaganda and other falsehoods spread rapidly on the platform. While these have always been issues for social media platforms, the changes Musk made to X over the past year have been particularly significant. Extended This material.
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For example, many The biggest spreaders There were fake videos and misinformation. Subscribers For X Premium, Musk’s paid subscription service, formerly known as Twitter Blue. Musk’s idea to give anyone who pays $8 a month a blue checkmark, which traditionally identifies a notable user with a verifiable identity, legitimized those users.
Worse, it’s an algorithm boost provided to Blue Checkmark X Premium subscribers, pushing the misinformation they share into users’ feeds, where posts will garner tens of thousands of shares and likes. And, due to the recent launch of the Creator Monetization Program, which rewards X Premium subscribers with real-life money for viral content, many of these disinformation spreaders are encouraged to get paid. Post the most incendiary fake content.
Elon Musk himself supports the spread of fake news.
But the issue wasn’t just the platform and how Musk decides how it works.
“Follow the war in real time, @WarMonitors and @sentdefender are cool,” Musk Posted On Saturday, check out two X users, recommending his more than 150 million followers who were constantly posting about the day’s events.
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The problem is that Musk has one of the two X accounts he’s verified. History By posting false information and fake AI-generated content. Accounts, both subscribing to X Premium and being paid to generate views through the platform monetization program, do not verify information and repost what they find elsewhere on the platform.
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To make matters worse, each account was kicked out for sharing biased views. The War Monitors account had a history. Tweeting Antisemitic posts was the OSINTdefender account. Posting Dehumanizing statements about innocent Palestinian citizens.
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Musk finally did. delete His endorsement post after getting into an argument with one of the accounts regarding bias in his posts.
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Linda Yacarino’s event cancelled
Monday night, Joanna Stern of the The Wall Street Journal X shared a statement provided to the outlet regarding his upcoming Tech Live conference next week.
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“Linda Yacarino will be unable to attend the WSJ Tech Live conference next week,” it reads Statement From X “With a global crisis looming, Linda and her team must remain fully focused on protecting the X Platform.”
It is entirely understandable that a company executive may have to cancel an event due to unforeseen circumstances. However, there are other factors to consider.
Interestingly, Yaccarino’s cancellation comes just weeks later. After its critical form At Vox Media’s Code 2023 event. At the event, Yaccarino appeared focused on delivering his interview earlier in the day, after being joined at the last minute by the company’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth. During the interview, Yaccarino also got a nasty laugh when asked who wouldn’t want to work with Musk and apparently revealed that the X app isn’t on his mobile device’s home screen.
As previously stated, Musk is the cause of most of the “X platform safety” issues that Yacarino claims they need to focus on. These issues have flowed directly into engineering and product at X — two teams in the company that Musk still oversees and leads. It’s unclear what Yaccarino’s role will lead him to do other than guide brands and other advertisers in running ads around these issues, which of course doesn’t address the issues at hand.
