Elon Musk deletes tweets promoting anti-Semitic and fake news accounts as reliable sources of information about the war in Israel
- The boss of X, formerly Twitter, faced a furious backlash for promoting sites that posted fake news and used ‘Jew’ as an abuse
- Comes after he was accused of allowing anti-Semitic content to double on the platform
Elon Musk was forced to delete a tweet that recommended an anti-Semitic account and a promoter of debunked videos as reliable sources of information about the attack on Israel.
The owner of X, formerly Twitter, faced a furious backlash after telling his 159 million followers that the accounts @WarMonitors and @sentdefender were ‘good’ for ‘following the war in real time’.
Followers were quick to point out that @WarMonitors had repeatedly used ‘Jew’ as a term of abuse on the platform, telling New York supermarket boss Avi Kaner to ‘give your own business, Jew’.
The world’s richest man gave his advice as the Jewish state reeled from its deadliest attack in 50 years, with more than 700 civilians dead and Hamas claiming to have seized another 100 and dragged them back to Gaza as hostages.
“The guy Musk is recommending for information on the Israel-Hamas escalation is an anti-Semitic version with a history of spreading misinformation,” wrote Sam Sokol of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Musk has been accused of allowing anti-Semitic content to multiply on the platform
The X boss faced furious backlash after his recommendation for ‘good’ sources of information on the conflict in Israel
War Monitors have a long history of using the word ‘Jew’ as a term of abuse
“He is tall and remains an antisemite,” added Seth Abramson.
The War Monitors account claimed that ‘the overwhelming majority of people in the media and banks are Zionists’ and told one opponent to ‘go worship a Jew lil brother’.
Sent Defender account was delighted with Musk’s endorsement and replied: ‘Wow, thank you so much for the support!’
Musk acknowledged the thanks with a tweet that remains on his account.
‘You are welcome. As always, please stay as close to the truth as possible, even for things you don’t like,’ he added.
‘This platform strives to maximize signal/noise from the human collective.’
But Sent Defender also has a history of fake news, posting a fake AI-generated photo of a massive explosion at the Pentagon in May.
Emerson T. Brooking, a researcher at the Atlantic Council Digital Forensics Research Lab, called @sentdefender an ‘absolutely toxic account’.
“Frequently posting incorrect and unverifiable stuff, inserting random editorials and trying to improve the number of paid subscribers,” he added.
“Elon Musk reinforces two frequent fake news posters who have historically posted debunked videos that are not on the ground or verified,” tweeted YouTuber Matt Binder.
‘Both have shared AI-generated videos as real in the past. they just share any rubbish they come across to get views.’
It took nearly two hours for Musk to delete his tweet, replacing it instead with a revised version that omitted his call to the controversial accounts.
Moments later, War Monitor posted a tweet referring to 20 martyrs killed
‘ in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza.
“Martyr’s is not an objective or accurate word, nor is ‘murdered,'” Musk tweeted in response.
“While it is fair to report both sides, please use as accurate words as possible or I will have to withdraw my recommendation to follow your account,” he added.
His original tweet enraged followers, including some who have long accused Musk of allowing the platform to promote anti-Semitic content.
Researchers at Beam found in June that the volume of English-language anti-Semitic tweets had more than doubled since the company’s takeover by Musk in October 2022.
He threatened to sue the anti-hate organization the Anti-Defamation League for defamation after it criticized him for allowing anti-Semitic content online, but insists he is ‘against antisemitism of any kind’.