Musk’s X Raises Concerns as Elections Draw Near

In a surprising move, the X social media platform (formerly known as Twitter) has disabled a feature that allows users to report election misinformation. This decision comes just weeks before an upcoming referendum in Australia and the 2024 US election. According to a report by Reuters, the drop-down menu for reporting false claims no longer includes a “politics” section, except for users in the European Union. It was discovered by research group Reset.Tech Australia that X, which has been previously criticized for misinformation, has made this change.

Reset.Tech Australia, in a letter addressed to X’s managing director for Australia, expressed their concern about this decision. The group argues that this move goes against X’s commitments under Australia’s misinformation code and believes that users should have the ability to report such content appropriately. Alice Dawkins, the executive director of Reset.Tech Australia, stressed the importance of combating serious misinformation, especially in the context of global elections. She questions why X seems to have regressed in addressing this issue.

It is worth noting that the Australian Electoral Commission has declared that electoral misinformation is currently at its highest level. A recent BBC report highlighted a study by the European Commission which found that X has the largest proportion of misinformation compared to other major social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube. Twitter CEO Elon Musk has previously stated that it is better for posts to remain on the site, with users flagging misleading information using the “Community Notes” feature. In addition to disabling the reporting feature, sources have informed the Information that X has also downsized its global election integrity team, despite earlier promises to expand it. The remaining size of the team remains unknown. (Read more Twitter stories.)