Godfather of Pretend Information
X-formerly-Twitter proprietor Elon Musk simply cannot cease falling for pretend information on his personal social media community.
The platform has quickly devolved right into a cesspool of disinformation and hate speech beneath his management — with Musk himself tremendously contributing to the development.
Most just lately, Musk commented on a completely made-up and easily disproven story about UK prime minister Keir Starmer “contemplating constructing ’emergency detainment camps’ on the Falkland Islands,” a preposterous try and sow discord.
Whereas Musk later deleted his post, the mercurial CEO had already carried out loads of harm. In response to one report, the tweet had already been seen a minimum of 1.8 million occasions.
Musk has but to acknowledge his self-own.
“Simply Elon Musk quote tweeting the co-leader of far-right occasion, Britain First, who’s sharing a pretend Telegraph headline,” Politics.co.uk editor Josh Self tweeted. “Totally dystopian.”
Proudly Gullible
It is from the primary time Musk has publicly misled his 193 million followers by actively spreading pretend information. Late final month, Musk cosigned a meme that learn: “For those who ever really feel dumb, simply bear in mind there are some individuals who nonetheless imagine the whole lot proven in [sic] information.”
Hours later, he shared a video that purported to point out “armed communist Maduro gangs ‘Colectivos’ are actually storming polling stations in Punta Cardón” — which later turned out to as an alternative present thieves stealing air conditioners.
In different phrases, he instantly outed himself as a kind of identical gullible fools who fall for something that flatters their preconceptions.
Musk has additionally pushed loads of different false narratives. Final month, he fully ignored his personal social media community’s content material insurance policies by sharing an unlabeled AI-generated video of vice chairman Kamala Harris.
As a substitute of apologizing following his newest pretend information slip-up, Musk dug in his heels, taking one other potshot on the UK’s new Labour authorities by accusing them of being “the woke Stasi” for attempting to quell far-right riots plaguing a number of UK cities.
The lashing out highlights Musk’s sharp veering to the far proper, most recently endorsing former president and fellow pretend information champion Donald Trump.
Has the mercurial CEO misplaced full contact with actuality — or is he maybe satisfied that he might financially profit from seeding chaos on-line? Contemplating he is spending most of his time on X nowadays, a spot that has been overrun by white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, and disinformation campaigns, it is probably a mixture of each.
Extra on pretend information: Elon Musk Bashes the News Media, Then Immediately Falls for Fake News
