Israel-Hamas Conflict Was a Test for Musk's X, and It Failed

A few fake posts is not "failure". Don't panic. Dust is kicked up on any platform for any given news event. When the dust settles the fake stuff gets identified with labels and replies. Some patience needed on busy news days. No big deal.

I found the information on X about the conflict mostly fine. The fake stuff was often easy to spot even before called out.

Most reasonable people don't want to be guilty of spreading false information. That's another reason why adding labels and corrective or context community notes to posts is effective, because it's a small motivator towards accuracy. Or a large motivator if they decide to limit accounts that attract too many notes.

> Mike Rothschild, a conspiracy theory researcher who has studied viral falsehoods on social media…

this stuff practically writes itself.

the trail of parties not responding to a request for comment is… telling. to trivialize what happened as a mere test for musk is… well…

It's still early in this news event, so they could improve. But my guess is they can no longer do anything about it - they've lost the teams and technology that can flag false posts early and the network of users responsible, so rely solely on other twitter users.

My question is why do people do this? In my mind there are two types of disinformation actors here: (1) nations and large groups; and, (2) individuals.

What would an individuals motivation be to recycle an old photo or video and pass it off as new? What do they get out of spreading disinformation? Has any journalists investigated this to the root?

Maybe my question falls under the large context of why are people anti-social jerkoffs on the internet?

I mean, you wanted free speech absolutism, you got it. I don't see the problem, the system failed as designed.