San Francisco:

Elon Musk, who is busy promoting Donald Trump for the keenly-watched US presidential election on November 5, has reportedly laid off more employees from his X social media platform.

According to a report in The Verge, a new wave of layoffs has hit X, primarily affecting its engineering department, citing sources inside X and posts on the workplace forum Blind.

“The exact scale of the job cuts remains unknown. These cuts come just two months after staffers were required to submit a one-page summary telling leadership their contributions to the company,” the report claimed.

Musk or X were yet to comment on the report.

Recently, the tech billionaire had reportedly sent an email to X staff about their much-anticipated stock grants – although with a catch.

In an email to staff seen by The Verge, the social media platform planned to award stock options based on the anticipated impact of employees.

“That means staff have to submit a one-page summary telling leadership their contributions to the company in order to get their stock,” said the report.

Keeping in mind how the company has continued to struggle under Musk’s ownership, employees have been bracing for more layoffs.

Musk bought X (then called Twitter) in 2022 and laid off more than 6,000 employees- roughly 80 per cent of the company’s staff.

The workforce was forced to justify their roles and even judge whether their own colleagues should be retained.

The job cuts affected departments like diversity and inclusion teams as well as product development and design. Even, Twitter’s content moderation team was not spared.

In January this year, X reportedly fired 1,000 employees from its ‘safety’ staff which was responsible for stopping abusive content online. Out of these 80 per cent were software engineers that were focused on “trust and safety issues”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Brasilia:

Brazil’s Supreme Court said Tuesday it was lifting a ban on Elon Musk’s social network X, which was blocked in its biggest Latin American market for over a month amid a row over disinformation.

“I authorize the immediate return of the activities” of the social platform, Judge Alexandre de Moraes said in his ruling, after X settled millions of dollars in fines for failing to comply with a series of court orders.

He gave Brazil’s communications regulator 24 hours to make the platform previously known as Twitter accessible again to its millions of Brazilian users.

Musk had yet to react to the decision.

Moraes has for months been embroiled in a standoff with the world’s richest man, a self-declared “free speech absolutist,” over a flood of online disinformation related to Brazil’s 2022 election campaign.

On August 31, the tensions came to a head when Moraes dramatically blocked X for failing to deactivate the accounts of dozens of supporters of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro and to name a new legal representative in Brazil.   

The row, which pitted freedom of expression against corporate responsibility, was closely watched worldwide.

A furious Musk lashed out at Moraes by calling him an “evil dictator” and dubbing him “Voldemort” after the villain from the “Harry Potter” series.

Moraes, for his part, accused the platform of undermining democracy by allowing disinformation to flourish  — a position backed by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who declared that the state would not “be intimidated by individuals, companies or digital platforms that believe themselves to be above the law.”

X eventually complied with all of Moraes’s demands in order to have the suspension lifted.

Last week, the judge confirmed that the company had also settled around $5.2 million in fines.

– Biggest Latin American market –

With more than one mobile phone per inhabitant, Brazilians are among the most connected people in the world.

X had 22 million users in the country before it was blocked.

Many Brazilians, including Lula, migrated to other platforms such as Threads or Bluesky, the social media network created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

But neither has come close to attracting the kind of audience enjoyed by X.

X’s fight with Moraes began during the October 2022 election, in which Bolsonaro failed to win a second term.

It escalated following attacks by Bolsonaro supporters on federal buildings in Brasilia after Lula’s inauguration in January 2023.

The destruction by supporters of Bolsonaro, dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics,” drew comparisons with the January 2021 attacks by supporters of then US president Donald Trump on the US Capitol.

Halfway through its suspension X briefly made a return in Brazil in mid-September, after a technical workaround which it claimed was “inadvertent.”

But it went back offline again after Moraes threatened it with more fines for non-compliance.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Brasilia:

Elon Musk’s X told Brazil’s Supreme Court it has complied with orders to stop the spread of misinformation and asked a judge to lift a ban on the platform, according to a document seen by Reuters, in a major retreat by the billionaire battling “censorship”.

A decision from the court on X’s return is still pending, but people close to Musk in Brazil believe service could be restored in a matter of days.

The request to resume activities in Brazil, one of X’s largest and most coveted markets, followed a series of conciliatory moves by the social media platform signalling a dramatic backdown in Musk’s months-long feud with Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

The judge, who has spearheaded a local crusade against perceived attacks on democracy and the political use of disinformation, had shut down Brazilians’ access to the platform formerly known as Twitter in late August.

The draconian move followed Musk’s decision to shutter X’s offices in Brazil as he resisted complying with Moraes’ orders.

The judicial battle eventually affected another prominent business controlled by Musk, satellite Internet provider Starlink, whose accounts Moraes froze in a move leading Musk to brand him a “dictator.”

The Brazil spat was just one of a series of recent face-offs between Musk, who views himself as a champion of free speech, and governments including Australia and the UK seeking to prevent the spread of online misinformation.

Brazil was X’s sixth-biggest market globally, with about 21.5 million users.

“Musk was afraid to lose market share, he also realized that this was a nonsense battle and that Brazilians were not turning their backs on Justice Alexandre de Moraes as he had expected,” said Thiago de Aragao, a senior researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

In a final attempt at circumventing Moraes’ ban, X used cloud services offered by third parties, allowing Brazilians to access its platform in spite of the prohibition, but the attempt was short-lived, especially after Moraes threatened to impose heavy fines on the company.

Late last week, X moved in a more conciliatory direction, appointing a local legal representative as Moraes had demanded.

In the document sent to the Brazilian Supreme Court, the company controlled by Musk said it had blocked nine accounts under investigation in a hate speech and misinformation probe.

“His backtracking is very positive. Whether one agrees with it or not, the law is to be respected not defied,” Rubens Barbosa, a former Brazilian ambassador to the United States, told Reuters.

According to two people familiar with Musk´s thinking, the billionaire will take a very different approach once X comes back to Brazil, adding he may still be combative but will likely try to respect the law. “From now on, he will fight in the courts,” one of the people said.

X did not reply to a request for comment.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Rio de Janeiro:

Elon Musk’s X social network carried out an automatic update overnight on phone applications that allowed it to bypass a ban in Brazil, an association of internet providers said Wednesday.

Some Brazilian users were surprised to have access again to the platform, formerly Twitter, from their phones after a Supreme Court judge last month ordered its shutdown in a legal standoff with Musk.

The Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers (ABRINT) explained that the return of X was due to an update of the app to Cloudflare software that uses constantly changing IP addresses.

The previous system used specific IPs, which act like a home address for servers or computers and could more easily be blocked.

The changes “make blocking the app much more complicated,” said ABRINT.

Many of the dynamic IPs “are shared with other legitimate services, such as banks and large internet platforms, making it impossible to block an IP without affecting other services,” the group said.

“Internet providers are in a delicate position,” and awaiting technical analysis and instructions from Brazil’s telecommunications agency, said ABRINT.

Brazil’s shutdown of X infuriated Musk and has fueled a fierce debate on freedom of expression and the limits of social networks, both inside and outside the country.

The social media platform has more than 22 million users in Brazil.

Judge Alexandre de Moraes last month ordered X to be banned after Musk refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts and then failed to name a new legal representative in the country as ordered.

Moraes has repeatedly clashed with the South African-born billionaire after making it his mission to crack down on disinformation.

Last week he ordered the transfer of some $3 million from Musk’s companies to pay fines incurred by X.

Moraes also froze the assets of X and Starlink, which has been operating in Brazil since 2022 — especially in remote communities in the Amazon — to ensure payment of fines imposed on X for its failure to follow court orders.

Musk reacted angrily to the suspension, calling Moraes a “dictator.”

Moraes also ordered that those using “technological subterfuges” such as virtual private networks (VPNs) to access the blocked site could be fined up to $9,000.

“Judge Alexandre de Moraes: I didn’t use a VPN to get in here, I just opened the app for my daily abstinence ritual and saw that it worked,” wrote one user on X Wednesday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Brazil started blocking Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) early Saturday (August 31, 2024), making it largely inaccessible on both the web and through mobile apps after the billionaire refused to name a legal representative to the country.

The move escalates a monthslong feud between Mr. Musk and a Brazilian Supreme Court justice over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the suspension on Friday (August 30, 2024).

To block X, Brazil’s telecommunications regulator, Anatel, told internet service providers to suspend users’ access to the social media platform. As of Saturday (August 31, 2024) after midnight local time, major operators had begun doing so.

Also Read: X owner Elon Musk uses his ’free speech’ platform to amplify his views worldwide

Mr. de Moraes had warned Mr. Musk on Wednesday (August 28, 2024) night that X could be blocked in Brazil if he failed to comply with his order to name a representative and established a 24-hour deadline. The company hasn’t had a representative in the country since earlier this month.

“Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” Mr. de Moraes wrote in his decision on Friday (August 30, 2024).

The Justice said the platform will stay suspended until it complies with his orders, and also set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies using VPNs to access it.

In a later ruling, he backtracked on his initial decision to establish a 5-day deadline for internet service providers themselves — and not just the telecommunications regulator — to block access to X, as well as his directive for app stores to remove virtual private networks, or VPNs.

Brazil is one of the biggest markets for X, which has struggled with the loss of advertisers since Mr. Musk purchased the former Twitter in 2022. Market research group Emarketer says some 40 million Brazilians, roughly one-fifth of the population, access X at least once per month.

“This is a sad day for X users around the world, especially those in Brazil, who are being denied access to our platform. I wish it did not have to come to this — it breaks my heart,” X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino said Friday (August 30, 2024) night, adding that Brazil is failing to uphold its constitution’s pledge to forbid censorship.

X had posted on its official Global Government Affairs page late Thursday (August 29, 2024) that it expected X to be shut down by de Moraes, “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”

“When we attempted to defend ourselves in Court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts,” the company wrote.

X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to comply with orders to block users.

Accounts that the platform previously has shut down on Brazilian orders include lawmakers affiliated with former President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing party and activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy. X’s lawyers in April sent a document to the Supreme Court in April, saying that since 2019 it had suspended or blocked 226 users.

In his decision Friday (August 30, 2024), Mr. de Moraes’ cited Mr. Musk’s statements as evidence that X’s conduct “clearly intends to continue to encourage posts with extremism, hate speech and anti-democratic discourse, and to try to withdraw them from jurisdictional control.”

In April, Mr. de Moraes included Mr. Musk as a target in an ongoing investigation over the dissemination of fake news and opened a separate investigation into the executive for alleged obstruction.

Also Read: Elon Musk called out by UK government over provocative X posts as unrest grips country

Mr. Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” has repeatedly claimed the justice’s actions amount to censorship, and his argument has been echoed by Brazil’s political right. He has often insulted Mr. de Moraes on his platform, characterizing him as a dictator and tyrant.

Mr. De Moraes’ defenders have said his actions aimed at X have been lawful, supported by most of the court’s full bench and have served to protect democracy at a time it is imperiled. He wrote Friday that his ruling is based on Brazilian law requiring internet services companies to have representation in the country so they can be notified when there are relevant court decisions and take requisite action — specifically the takedown of illicit content posted by users and an anticipated churn of misinformation during October municipal elections.

The looming shutdown is not unprecedented in Brazil.

Lone Brazilian judges shut down Meta’s WhatsApp, the nation’s most widely used messaging app, several times in 2015 and 2016 due to the company’s refusal to comply with police requests for user data. In 2022, Mr. de Moraes threatened the messaging app Telegram with a nationwide shutdown, arguing it had repeatedly ignored Brazilian authorities’ requests to block profiles and provide information. He ordered Telegram to appoint a local representative; the company ultimately complied and stayed online.

X and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in several countries — mostly authoritarian regimes such as Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, usually to quell dissent and unrest. Twitter was banned in Egypt after the Arab Spring uprisings, which some dubbed the “Twitter revolution,” but it has since been restored.

A search Friday (August 30, 2024) on X showed hundreds of Brazilian users inquiring about VPNs that could potentially enable them to continue using the platform by making it appear they were logging on from outside the country. It was not immediately clear how Brazilian authorities would police this practice and impose fines cited by Mr. de Moraes.

“This is an unusual measure, but its main objective is to ensure that the court order to suspend the platform’s operation is, in fact, effective,” Filipe Medon, a specialist in digital law and professor at the law school of Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Rio de Janeiro, told The Associated Press.

Mariana de Souza Alves Lima, known by her handle MariMoon, showed her 1.4 million followers on X where she intends to go, posting a screenshot of rival social network BlueSky.

On Thursday (August 29, 2024) evening, Starlink, Mr. Musk’s satellite internet service provider, said on X that Mr. de Moraes this week frozen its finances, preventing it from doing any transactions in the country where it has more than 250,000 customers.

“This order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied—unconstitutionally—against X. It was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil. We intend to address the matter legally,” Starlink said in its statement. The law firm representing Starlink told the AP that the company appealed, but wouldn’t make further comment.

Mr. Musk replied to people sharing the reports of the freeze, adding insults directed at de Moraes. “This guy @Alexandre is an outright criminal of the worst kind, masquerading as a judge,” he wrote.

Mr. Musk later posted on X that SpaceX, which runs Starlink, will provide free internet service in Brazil “until the matter is resolved” since “we cannot receive payment, but don’t want to cut anyone off.”

In his decision, Mr. de Moraes said he ordered the freezing of Starlink’s assets, as X didn’t have enough money in its accounts to cover mounting fines, and reasoning that the two companies are part of the same economic group.

While ordering X’s suspension followed warnings and fines and so was appropriate, taking action against Starlink seems “highly questionable,” said Luca Belli, coordinator of the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s Technology and Society Center.

“Yes, of course, they have the same owner, Elon Musk, but it is discretionary to consider Starlink as part of the same economic group as Twitter (X). They have no connection, they have no integration,” Mr. Belli said.

After a months-long standoff over disinformation, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge banned billionaire Elon Musk’s social media network X in the country on Friday. The judge, Alexandre de Moraes, ordered the “immediate, complete and comprehensive suspension of the operation of” X in the country. He told the national communications agency to take “all necessary measures” to implement the order within 24 hours.

Alexandre de Moraes also threatened a fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) to anyone who used “technological subterfuges” to get around the block, such as a VPN or the virtual private network.

The Elon Musk-Brazil Judge Controversy

The Elon Musk-Alexandre de Moraes controversy began when the Supreme Court judge ordered the suspension of several accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter, belonging to supporters of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, who tried to discredit the voting system in the 2022 election, which he lost.

Brazilian authorities are investigating whether Bolsonaro plotted a coup attempt to prevent current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from assuming office in January 2023.

In April, Moraes ordered an investigation of Musk, accusing him of reactivating some of the banned accounts.

ALSO READ | Elon Musk Compares Brazil’s Chief Justice To Harry Potter Villain Voldemort

X claims that Moraes threatened to arrest one of the company’s legal representatives in Brazil if it did not comply.

Musk’s platform had shut all of its Brazil offices due to what it called “censorship” by the judge, though its service had remained available for users in the country.

“We have a right to defend fundamental rights. Those who violate democracy, who violate fundamental human rights, whether in person or through social media, must be held accountable,” Moraes said in a speech on Friday, apparently referring to X.

Ban On Elon Musk’ X In Brazil

The Brazilian Supreme Court judge said the suspension would remain until all related court orders on X were complied with, including the payment of fines amounting to 18.5 million reais ($3.28 million), which he had previously slapped on the social media network for ignoring judicial orders.

The order will also be valid until a representative of the company in the country is appointed, he said.

Moraes also froze the financial assets of Musk’s Starlink by issuing an order to block the accounts of the satellite internet network that has rapidly expanded the number of its users in Brazil.

On Wednesday, he told Musk he had 24 hours to find a new representative or he would face suspension. However, as the deadline passed, X said in a statement that it expected Moraes to shut it down “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”

X reportedly has more than 22 million users in Brazil.

What Elon Musk Said

Elon Musk, who took over X in 2022, reacted sharply to the ban and branded Alexandre de Moraes an “evil dictator cosplaying as a judge”.

He also accused him of “trying to destroy democracy in Brazil.”

“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” he wrote on X.

“They’re shutting down the #1 source of truth in Brazil,” Musk added.

(With agency inputs)

Elon Musk’s social media giant X has clashed with Justice Alexandre de Moraes (in picture) over its reluctance to comply with orders to block users. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A Brazilian Supreme Court justice has ordered the suspension of Elon Musk’s social media giant X in Brazil after the tech billionaire refused to name a legal representative in the country, according to a copy of the decision seen by The Associated Press. The move on Friday (August 30, 2024) further escalates the monthslong feud between the two men over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes had warned Mr. Musk on Wednesday (August 28, 2024) night that X could be blocked in Brazil if he failed to comply with his order to name a representative, and established a 24-hour deadline. The company hasn’t had a representative in the country since earlier this month. Mr. De Moraes said the platform would remain blocked until it complies.

Brazil is an important market for X, which has struggled with the loss of advertisers since Mr. Musk purchased the former Twitter in 2022. Market research group Emarketer says some 40 million Brazilians, roughly one-fifth of the population, access X at least once per month.

X had posted on its official Global Government Affairs page late on Thursday that it expected X to be shut down by Mr. de Moraes, “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents”.

“When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts,” the company wrote. “Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him.” X has clashed with Mr. de Moraes over its reluctance to comply with orders to block users.

Accounts that the platform previously has shut down on Brazilian orders include lawmakers affiliated with former President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing party and activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy.

Mr. Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist”, has repeatedly claimed the justice’s actions amount to censorship, and his argument has been echoed by Brazil’s political right. He has often insulted Mr. de Moraes on his platform, characterising him as a dictator and tyrant.

Mr. De Moraes’ defenders have said his actions aimed at X have been lawful, supported by most of the court’s full Bench and have served to protect democracy at a time in which it is imperilled. His order on Friday is based on Brazilian law requiring foreign companies to have representation in the country so they can be notified when there are legal cases against them.

Given that operators are aware of the widely publicised standoff and their obligation to comply with an order from Mr. de Moraes, plus the fact doing so isn’t complicated, X could be offline as early as 12 hours after receiving their instructions, said Luca Belli, coordinator of the Technology and Society Centre at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Rio de Janeiro.

San Francisco:

False or misleading US election claims posted on X by Elon Musk have amassed nearly 1.2 billion views this year, a watchdog reported Thursday, highlighting the billionaire’s potential influence on the highly polarized White House race.

Ahead of the November election, researchers have raised alarm that X, formerly Twitter, is a hotbed of political misinformation.

They have also flagged that Musk, who purchased the platform in 2022 and is a vocal backer of Donald Trump, appears to be swaying voters by spreading falsehoods on his personal account.

Researchers from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) identified 50 posts since January by Musk — who has more than 193 million followers on the social media site — with election claims debunked by independent fact-checkers.

None of the posts displayed a “Community Note,” a crowd-sourced moderation tool that X has promoted as the way for users to add context to posts, CCDH said, raising questions about its effectiveness to combat falsehoods.

“Elon Musk is abusing his privileged position as owner of a… politically influential social media platform to sow disinformation that generates discord and distrust,” warned CCDH chief executive Imran Ahmed.

“The lack of Community Notes on these posts shows that his business is failing woefully to contain the kind of algorithmically-boosted incitement that we all know can lead to real-world violence.”

The posts analyzed by CCDH carried widely debunked claims, such as that Democrats are encouraging illegal migration with the aim of “importing voters” or that the election is vulnerable to fraud. Both claims amassed hundreds of millions of views.

Last week, Musk faced a firehose of criticism for sharing with his followers an AI deepfake video featuring Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

In it, a voiceover mimicking Harris calls President Joe Biden senile before declaring that she does not “know the first thing about running the country.”

The video, viewed by millions, carried no indication that it was parody — save for a laughing emoji. Only later did Musk clarify that the video was meant as satire.

“Musk behaves as if he is beyond reproach despite growing evidence of the harmful role he is personally playing to fuel disinformation and division ahead of the US elections,” Nora Benavidez, from the advocacy group Free Press Action Fund, told AFP.

“As his behavior edges closer to election interference, it’s up to others — the public, regulatory agencies and advertisers — to hold him accountable for his anti-democratic behavior.”

Musk, who purchased the platform in 2022 for $44 billion, is facing growing scrutiny over his potential influence on voters.

On Monday, a bipartisan group of five US secretaries of state sent an open letter to Musk, urging him to fix X’s AI chatbot known as Grok after it produced election misinformation.

Hours after Biden stepped down from the presidential race last month and endorsed Harris as the Democratic nominee, Grok churned out false information about ballot deadlines, which was amplified by other platforms.

X — which also faced criticism for stoking tensions during recent far-right riots across England — has gutted trust and safety teams and scaled back content moderation efforts once used to tame misinformation, making it what researchers call a haven for disinformation.

X did not respond to an AFP request for comment.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

Conspiracy theories about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump received tens of millions of views on X, researchers said Tuesday, highlighting the potential for extreme falsehoods to go viral on the Elon Musk-owned platform.

The social media site, formerly named Twitter, was flooded with unsubstantiated claims soon after the shooting Saturday at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which left one spectator dead and a bloodied Trump injured in the ear.

Those included unfounded assertions that the assassination attempt had been “staged” or an “inside job,” while fingers were pointed at imaginary culprits such as Jews and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.

The conspiracy theories were viewed over 215 million times on X, the watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said after analyzing a sample of 100 popular posts.

A majority of the posts did not carry a “Community Note,” a crowd-sourced moderation tool that Musk has promoted as the way for users to add context to the tweets, CCDH added.

In the first 24 hours alone, unsubstantiated narratives around the incident amassed more than 100 million views on X, according to the nonprofit research group Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

X did not respond to a request for comment.

Internet hoaxers also falsely identified several people as the shooter — including Italian sports journalist Marco Violi, anti-Trump protester Maxwell Yearick and comedian Sam Hyde, AFP’s fact-checkers reported.

Federal investigators have identified the shooter, who was killed on the scene, as Thomas Matthew Crooks of Pennsylvania.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, several social media users voiced confusion as they scrambled to obtain accurate information in what appeared to be a sea of false or misleading posts, which rapidly gained traction.

The trend illustrates the ability of falsehoods to mutate into viral political discourse on tech platforms including X, which now offer fewer guardrails as they scale back content moderation.

Researchers say some clout-chasing accounts on the platform have a financial motive to post sensational falsehoods, as X’s ad revenue-sharing program incentivizes extreme content designed to boost engagement.

“In the marketplace of disinformation — which is effectively what a lot of social media platforms have now been reduced to, a marketplace for lies — extreme content is your currency,” said Imran Ahmed, chief executive and founder of CCDH.

“The algorithms take the most outlandish content and amplify it exponentially until the entire digital world is flooded with conspiracism, disinformation and hate.”

Researchers have warned about a possible firehose of disinformation in the run up to the November election, which will take place in a deeply polarized political climate in the United States.

“Already, at an early stage in the US electoral cycle, we can see flashing warning signs that social media in the weeks and months ahead will be increasingly chaotic and rife with disinformation,” Ahmed said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Elon Musk-run X Corp has banned 2,29,925 accounts in India between April 26 and May 25, mostly for promoting child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity.

The microblogging platform, going through churning under Elon Musk, also took down 967 accounts for promoting terrorism on its platform in the country.

In total, X banned 230,892 accounts in the reporting period.

The microblogging platform, in its monthly report in compliance with the new IT Rules, 2021, said that it received 17,580 complaints from users in India in the same time frame through its grievance redressal mechanisms.

In addition, the company processed 76 grievances which were appealing account suspensions.

“We overturned 0 of these account suspensions after reviewing the specifics of the situation. The remaining reported accounts remain suspended,” said the company.

“We received 31 requests related to general questions about accounts during this reporting period,” it added.

Most complaints from India were about ban evasion (6,881), followed by hateful conduct (3,763), sensitive adult content (3,205), and abuse/harassment (2,815).

Between March 26 and April 25, X banned 1,84,241 accounts in the country.

The microblogging platform also took down 1,303 accounts for promoting terrorism on its platform.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)