Researchers discovered that 7 key accounts are distorting the news on Israel and Hamas on X

Researchers discovered that 7 key accounts are distorting the news on Israel and Hamas on X

According to research released Friday by the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, a small number of powerful but unreliable accounts, some of which have been supported by Elon Musk, are easily outpacing reputable mainstream news outlets and controlling the flow of news on X around the IsraelHamas war.

Following the start of the offensive against Israel on October 7 during a three-day period, researchers examined popular posts about the conflict. They came to the conclusion that the articles on the issue that received the most attention demonstrated how news on the site is “faster, more confusing, and potentially more shaped by Musk himself.”

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The new study adds evidence to a growing body of recent anecdotal stories from academics, journalists, and researchers who have observed a decline in the speed and incentives for sharing news and information on Twitter over the past year, particularly since the commencement of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Unbiased business NewsGuard, which monitors misleading information online, released a separate analysis on Thursday that revealed verified accounts were behind roughly three-fourths of the most popular incorrect information concerning the Israel-Hamas conflict on Twitter.

The principal author of the new analysis and research scientist at the University of Washington, Mike Caulfield, asserted that “that shift is real.”

We’re essentially looking at a different understanding of what news is, according to Caulfield. “It’s quick, unchecked, and frequently unsourced. There is evidence that the change is intentional and is a part of the vision for how news will be presented on X.

“We have questions that it serves the public effectively,” he continued. “The ones that are active, presumably buy into this concept.

Due to their “disproportionate power and influence” over Israel and Hamas news, the researchers dubbed seven top-performing X accounts as “new elites.” The “new elites” are people like Visegrád 24, a news aggregator run by a right-wing Polish social media marketing company; Mario Nawfal, a Twitter celebrity known for hosting live audio chats about cryptocurrency who was the subject of an NBC News investigation; @spectatorindex, an account that claims to provide “News, media, and data from around the globe,” reportedly run by an Australian-Muslim doctor; and @CollinRugg, a co-

Despite having considerably fewer followers than well-known news accounts like CNN, The New York Times, BBC, and Reuters, the research found that tweets regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict performed better than those from these accounts (NBC News was excluded). During the research period, the Israel-Hamas battle generated 112 million views across 298 tweets from popular traditional news sources, whereas 1,834 tweets from the seven newly influential accounts received 1.6 billion views overall.

Researchers claimed that modifications made to X by Musk have moved the platform in a different direction.

According to the researchers, “This occurs in a setting that has been stripped of many of the ‘credibility signals’ that helped to ground users in the past — checkmarks which indicated notability, fact-checks supplied through Twitter Trends, and Twitter/X-based tagging of false information. Even the most basic features of the web, like easy sourcing through links, have been diminished by the platform and, maybe as a result, by the new elites who now command the attention of its users.

X’s automatic email answer to a request for comment read: “Busy now, please check back later.”

Musk has been outspoken about his disdain for the traditional media and his admiration for alternative news sources. Additionally, Musk has urged additional content producers to serve as “citizen journalists” and made adjustments to X that had an impact on established news sources. These changes included taking away verification badges from journalists and news organizations and limiting the reach of tweets that contained links to news websites.

The “new elites” were discovered to have a variety of political viewpoints but shared a number of traits. They tweeted much more frequently than established news sources, conveyed urgency with emojis like sirens and words like “BREAKING” and frequently failed to provide sources for their assertions. The most popular posts frequently contained gruesome images and videos of the wounded and dead, as well as footage of the attacks and airstrikes, which were frequently emotionally charged.

According to researchers, the sheer volume of tweets and the lack of sourcing or context contributed to “the sense of a constant stream of decontextualized anger and violence.”

These new elite accounts have a lot in common, including a sharp rise in followers over the past two years that could be attributed to Musk’s contacts with them. Researchers said that Musk “may be playing a significant role in the growing importance of these news-focused sources” by following many of these accounts, responding to them, and directly endorsing them.

Musk has frequently engaged with or encouraged the accounts that the researchers have named. Before he later removed it, Musk thanked two of the anonymous accounts identified by researchers in a tweet that had more than 11 million views. Before the Israel-Hamas war, both accounts had a history of sending out erroneous tweets.

All of the accounts classified as “new elite” by researchers have blue verified badges, which, up until recently, indicated an account was noteworthy and real but now indicate they are paying $8 per month to use X’s premium service.

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