Blue-Checked, ‘Verified’ Users on X Produce 74 Percent of the Platform’s Most Viral False or Unsubstantiated Claims Relating to the Israel-Hamas War

retiolus@lemmy.cat to Technology@lemmy.world – 892 points –
Blue-Checked, ‘Verified’ Users on X Produce 74 Percent of the Platform’s Most Viral False or Unsubstantiated Claims Relating to the Israel-Hamas War - Misinformation Monitor: October 2023 - NewsGuard
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It's almost as if paying for a trusted or verified badge makes it easier to spread misinformation

He claims that paying helps eliminate bots, there's no way he truly believes that or he is dumber than given credit for. The entities that are interested in disinformation have deep pockets. Most of disinformation on Facebook was done by paying them.

Musk knows, he just wants to make money.

Why though? How is his life any different if he makes more money?

Because Twitter owes more in interest on the loans he took to buy it than it makes every month and he needs to dig himself out of a financial black hole.

What has been his motivation since becoming a millionaire? Money gives him control over others.

If twatter turns a profit he looks good (to simps). If it craters he looks like he fucked up.

Two words for Lonnie: clown shoes

But then unemployed facebook moms can’t spread their misinformation about whatever it is that’s virally spreading that week.

As planned though! Elon Musk doesn't care about misinfo as long as aligns with his politics.

blue check replies are fucking garbage, i'm so fucking sick of having to scroll thru them for 5 fucking minutes to maybe see a sensible take

People here are just gonna tell you to leave (I have done so myself) but if you can't for whatever reason something that can help is an extension like Blue Blocker which automatically blocks (or you can set it to mute) blue check marks as you encounter them. That way you don't give them money for their horrible baits. While I was at Twitter waiting until the people I followed shared their new socials (sadly most went to BlueSky instead of Mastodon so I lost them anyway) I used Blue Blocker in that manner. You can set exceptions for certain accounts tho I didn't, it mercilessly muted all checkmarks from my feed and revealed the bare Twitter behind. The result was somewhat like old Twitter at first but eventually it does get kinda slow as most of the valuable accounts become inactive. On the bright side that made leaving so much easier, so if you want to leave but need a motivator there's one that might help you.

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Yep, sounds like Elon and the Saudi's have achieved their goal of crippling Twitter's utility as a means of organizing large scale protests and uprisings like the Arab Spring or the BLM protests in 2020. Now all that's left are propaganda bots and various flavours of right wing extremists.

Oh no :(((((

If only there were a plethora of alternatives people could turn to… but no, Twitter is the only thing oh well

I didn't say there weren't alternatives. I said Elon and the Saudi's achieved their goal of crippling the biggest. I guess reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, eh?

Demand USA lawmakers make a fairness doctrine for media and social media. We used to have a fairness doctrine. Tweak it though.

The fairness doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows, or editorials. The doctrine did not require equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented. The demise of this FCC rule has been cited as a contributing factor in the rising level of party polarization in the United States.[5][6]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

Everyone continuing to use Twitter/X is thereby materially supporting fascism. That's what the service exists for today.

You should probably not listen to the opinion of anyone who pays Elon Musk 8 dollars a month for an emoji.

Elon doesn't care because he agrees with them.

I mean this is already unsurprising given how easy it was to get a blue checkmark as a journalist back when it was Twitter.

Literally any media corporation could get it for any of their employees. But for anyone else, you had to pay thousands to get a middleman who had a contact at twitter to verify you. It was such a weird system.

About everyone (including several news sites) have produced false/misleading claims about who launched which rocket and how many were killed and all the other stuff, because this fight is messy, and both sides want to look good.

How many of those misinformers just copied from another source that's supposed to be more trusted?

Blue Blocker is a great extension for anyone still using Twitter.

This is not news. Stop upvoting Twitter spam, it's not even vaguely interesting.

This definitely feels le sampling bias to me. What percentage of xhitter as a whole is paying for blue checks? What percentage of information regarding the war from blue checks is true? How does that compare with the same figure for non paying customers?

Exactly what he wanted, money. He's not interested in the slightest with factual information unless there's some way he can use it for his own benefit

Well, I mean, didn't he change the standards for what it takes to get a blue checkmark? This is no surprise to me.

This is hardly surprising seeing as any one of us could create an account, buy a blue tick and then start posting any old shit.