Billionaire Elon Musk pitches X as a haven for free speech and a better alternative to mainstream media for news and political updates. Under Musk’s ownership, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter has backed off policing misinformation, relying instead on the wisdom of crowds to expose falsehoods.
Musk’s critics say the approach favors right-wing politics with which he increasingly identifies. Under Twitter’s previous management, conservatives often complained that the site was more likely to label the content they shared as misinformation than its liberal counterparts.
Two false stories that spread on X this week, primarily among left-leaning users, were a reminder that online misinformation can come from anywhere on the political spectrum and tested Musk’s determination to let users determine truth for themselves.
The original post started as an absurdist joke: A pseudonymous user with a small following (now a private account) on Wednesday referred to a nonexistent passage in Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” in which Vance admits to trying to have sex with a couch (though the post used much cruder language). The joke slowly spread, eventually reaching millions of people and, ultimately, many who didn’t notice or care that no such passage was in Vance’s book.
An online article by the Associated Press that purportedly denied the allegations only added fuel to the fire. On Thursday, the AP walked back its fact-check, drawing new attention to the fake story. Pointing out that it’s unfair to mentally associate Vance with a couch has become like telling someone not to think about elephants.
Activists against online misinformation tend to assume that anyone who likes or shares something must believe it. But the Vance case illustrates a crucial nuance in understanding why even fictitious lies spread online: Often, the people who spread lies don’t care if they’re true; they just find them entertaining or effective at embarrassing.
The second falsehood that surfaced on Wednesday seemed to be a more typical hoax: Several X users posted screenshots of what they claimed was a leak of internal software code that showed the site had given certain accounts special permission to post racist slurs. The list of fake accounts included those of Musk, Donald Trump, and a number of other conservatives.
Company X and Okta, the cloud software company that Company X allegedly used to whitelist Musk and other users, have claimed the code is not authentic.
As of Thursday evening, the alleged story had not been picked up by major U.S. media outlets, but like Vance’s smears, the screenshots had been viewed by millions on X while doing little to debunk it.
One of Musk’s stated goals for X is to create a world where “legacy media” is replaced by “citizen journalists” who post directly to his platform — a plan that dovetails with efforts by Donald Trump, whom Musk supports as a presidential candidate, to discredit what he calls the “fake news media.”
Musk has often touted X’s “Community Notes” feature, which allows the site’s users to suggest notes to fact-check or add context to posts, as a faster and more reliable source of truth than professional journalism or content moderation. But the circulating fake whitelist of racist slurs on Wednesday made it clear that X has no intention of leaving the matter to amateurs.
Hours later, one of the original accounts that posted it was suspended — a response so rare and heavy-handed that some users took it as a sign that the leak must be real. By Thursday, the post containing the screenshot was tagged with a warning label saying that X had violated the site’s policies on manipulated media. The company told The Washington Post that it had suspended several accounts that shared the image, citing rules against trying to circumvent bans.
As of Thursday evening, it appeared that few of the most popular X posts about the Vance rumors and fake code leaks were labeled as community notes.
By removing content moderation from X and restricting links to media sites, Musk has given the site more freedom than ever before, welcoming misinformation, unfounded claims and conspiracy theories — a trend that has so far been largely welcomed on the right but condemned on the left. The site continues to be the target of false claims, including a new wave aimed at Kamala Harris this week.
But this week’s hoax shows that liberals share in falsehoods, and conservatives are not immune to the consequences. When it comes to correcting the record, neither side can expect much support from X — unless the misinformation happens to be targeted at the site or its personal owner.
