13 Sep 24 | News and features, Newsletters, United States
Who could have predicted that Donald Trump would unite George Orwell and Taylor Swift in the form of an Index newsletter? But that’s the strange world in which we’re living.
This week I’ve been obsessively telling my Index colleagues about Laura Beers’ excellent book Orwell’s Ghosts, which is full of insights about today’s political climate through the lens of the Animal Farm author’s wisdom. One part that’s really stuck with me is the relationship between free speech and the truth, as Orwell saw it.
“Orwell could never endorse a world in which ‘alternative facts’ were given free rein,” Beers writes, reminding her readers about the famous Nineteen Eighty-Four line where Orwell describes freedom as the right to say that 2 + 2 = 4. As Beers points out, it is very much not the right to say that 2 + 2 = 5. Objective truth matters.
Anyone with even a passing interest in the US election will know that this week has been a goldmine for talking points on truth, lies and misinformation. It is the perfect moment to be reading this book.
When ABC News hosted a debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump this week, it was also the first time they’d met in person. After shaking hands, the debate began with gusto, Harris quickly getting under Trump’s skin. What was particularly interesting about this debate though was the on-the-go fact-checking live on air. It’s something we’ve never seen to this degree, and the fact that ABC feel it is needed now is telling.
On the issue of abortion, Trump asserted — not for the first time — that babies in the USA are being executed after being born. Moderators took down the false claim: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”
Commentators on the right were quick to denounce this new era of fact-checking. It was unfairly skewed towards Trump and they were picking him apart more than Harris. There is of course a simple explanation for that, which is that he told more lies. According to CNN, Trump delivered more than 30 false claims while Harris gave one, although additional claims of hers were misleading or lacking in context.
The award for top untruth of the night goes perhaps to Trump’s claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating people’s pet cats and dogs. The internet quickly got to work with memes of The Simpsons’ dog Santa’s Little Helper giving the side eye to cat Snowball II. But ABC moderators were speedier than the meme-makers and set the story straight live on air, confirming that there had been “no credible reports” of this alleged neighbourhood pet buffet.
Of course, the lie didn’t come out of thin air. As The Economist breaks down, the “allegation had been circulating in right-wing circles on social media, boosted by Elon Musk”. Amid anti-immigrant sentiment in some circles, a Facebook post “cited fourth-hand knowledge” about the cat-eating claim. A half-truth is still a lie. And when it comes to a Facebook post based on fourth-hand knowledge being pedalled by a would-be (and former) president, we’re not even close to the realms of a half-truth. Two plus two does not equal four. Two plus two equals Lassie for lunch.
Social media has played a starring role in the misinformation story. Perhaps now is a good time to move on to X owner and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s post directed at pop superstar Taylor Swift.
Following the TV debate, Swift endorsed Harris in an Instagram post to her 284 million followers (to Trump’s 26.5 million and Harris’s 16.9 million, just to demonstrate the sway she has), where she talked about her concern over AI-generated content claiming to show her endorsing Donald Trump. Beneath a picture of the Shake It Off singer holding her ragdoll cat Benjamin Button, she wrote: “The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth,” and signed off “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady,” riffing off the sexist trope used by Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance towards Harris and others.
While not distracted by SpaceX (one of his other companies), which yesterday launched the first ever privately-funded spacewalk, Musk found the time to post: “Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life.” If we know anything about Swift it’s that Musk is about to become the villain in an upcoming hit single.
Trump also reacted to Swift endorsing Harris. He said the popstar would “probably pay a price for it in the marketplace”.
Swift might say: “Haters gonna hate”. But when powerful billionaires and presidential candidates are deriding cultural figures for having a political voice, and objective truth becomes optional in a democracy, there is a problem. As this and other elections continue to unfold, it’s everyone’s responsibility to make sure that two plus two continue to equal four.
23 Aug 24 | News and features
Why do we tolerate X? Elon Musk’s poisoned well is fast filling up with far-right propaganda, disinformation, hate speech and now, it would seem, adverts for machine guns and grenade launchers from Iran-backed terrorists in Yemen. This is the reality of the free speech utopia the world’s richest man promised us when he took over Twitter. And yet we continue to populate it with content. I do, Index does and many of you reading this will continue to do so. When Dr Johnson said in 1776 that “no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money” he could not have imagined a world where 335 million blockheads provide free copy for a billionaire.
It’s not just X. The social media business model depends on us all selling our labour for nothing to feed the exponential growth of the platforms.
As Musk has grown closer to Donald Trump, he has begun to openly use X to publish his own personal propaganda for his favoured candidate. His “civil war is inevitable” intervention in Britain’s summer riots demonstrates that he is actively prepared to foment division and racial tension in a country he knows little about. As the US election approaches, Musk seems intent on turning X into an ideological sewer.
So why do we stay? We stay because the rewards are immediate and addictive. We are paid, not in cash, but in dopamine hits and the validation of our followers. And it’s not all negative. Twitter was once a fantastically useful resource for journalists, providing connections, expert knowledge and hard news from an unprecedented international network. When I broadcast to my relatively modest 15,000 followers, the response is more direct and personal that in any other medium I have worked in, including mass circulation newspapers. For a small organisation like Index, X is a vital way of communicating our work with dissidents to our 80,000 followers around the world.
In recent weeks, there has been a noticeable movement away from Musk’s platform. In the UK, journalists have led the X-odus to Threads and Bluesky. In the case of Threads, owned by Meta, it’s not quite clear why it is better to write content for Mark Zuckerberg rather than Musk, although some are remarking that the tone is less openly hostile. Bluesky is positively benign in comparison, but with just six million users it has none of the reach of its nastier competitor.
Personally, I have ended up tripling my workload as I now post not just to X, but to my loyal and impeccably behaved band of 395 followers on Threads and 81 followers on Bluesky.
It would be odd for a free expression organisation to advocate for the boycott of a social media platform, but we have regular discussions internally about the ethics of remaining on X. We will, of course, keep you informed.
There are two stories we have been tracking this week in Thailand and India that would benefit from wider international circulation. The first is the dissolution of the Move Forward party in Thailand, which won the most votes in last year’s elections. Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat promised to end the practice of military intervention in Thai politics, break up monopolies and reform the country’s lese majeste laws, which restrict criticism of the royal family. Limjaroenrat told the Guardian this week: “They’re coming after us. They’re exterminating us.”
Meanwhile, this month marks the fifth anniversary of the Indian government’s decision to strip the state of Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy. Since then we’ve reported on the many ways in which people’s free expression has been attacked in the region, from newspapers being closed and journalists arrested to mosques being closed. Last year, India’s supreme court backed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s position on the contested region, which has been ruled in part by Pakistan and India since partition in 1947. Local elections will take place next month and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi pledged last week that he and his opposition alliance, known as the INDIA bloc, will commit themselves to restoring statehood.
12 Jul 24 | Europe and Central Asia, France, Germany, Netherlands, News and features, Russia
A network of accounts flooded social media with disinformation in the run-up to the European Parliamentary elections a new report has found.
The report was commissioned by the Social Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D) grouping together with the Dutch delegation GroenLinks-PvdA and produced by disinformation specialisists Trollrensics.
It reveals that organised networks of thousands of accounts, which the researchers believe are of likely Russian origin, actively influenced public opinion on X in France and Germany during the elections while voters in the Netherlands, Italy and the English-speaking public were also affected by the troll networks
Trollrensics’ data analysis showed that at least 20% of all tweets about the French far-right politician Zemour came from this troll network, for example. However, the research company estimated the actual percentage is significantly higher as the networks manipulated the X algorithm to amplify specific themes.
The research also found that German political party AfD received a huge boost thanks to the troll army. At least 10.7% of the tweets about the AfD came from the disinformation network.
The network focused mainly on spreading pro-Russian propaganda, messages about anti-vaxxers with anti-vaccination narratives and anti-LGBTIQ+ messages.
Thijs Reuten, an MEP for the S&D, said, “We commissioned this independent study as we were curious about the extent of online foreign interference and how measurable it is – especially because this sometimes seems so hard to ascertain. This study has shown that significant influence took place during the European elections. Troll armies managed to make topics trend and at the same time make certain news reports less visible.”
Reuten added, “This clearly shows our democracy is vulnerable and that foreign powers are willing to spend a lot of money and effort to sow division in our population. We need to defend ourselves better against such organised attempts of foreign interference. I expect the European Commission and the intelligence services to be on top of this. Our open society is in danger if troll armies are able to manipulate social media and, therefore, the public debate”.
18 Oct 23 | Israel, News and features, Palestine
The tragedies unfolding in Israel and Gaza are putting the social media platform X to the test – a test that X keeps failing. X, formerly known as Twitter, has elevated disinformation alongside fact-based reports on the conflict that range from graphic images created through AI, video game footage, and a plethora of recycled clips from Syria’s decade-long conflict.
Yet X’s disinformation overload should have been expected. Since Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform, it has undergone a series of algorithmic and “aesthetic” changes that upended the credibility of the content. Instead of boosting posts from experts and on-the-ground reporting, X’s algorithm promotes Twitter Blue subscriptions, accounts which pay for a verification checkmark. This “pay to play” method has served to boost accounts of bots and propagandists, and has enabled disinformation to go viral in a short amount of time.
Musk’s favourite sycophants are being rewarded for their click-baiting methods amid the violence in Israel and on the Gaza Strip. Mario Nawfal – an obscure businessman who gained a following on X from his endorsements by Musk – posted a 2020 YouTube video showing Turkish missiles fired in northern Syria. Nawfal misstated: “Salvo of rockets fired by Hamas from the Gaza Strip towards Israel” alongside the video.
His message was tagged with a “community note” – an X fact-check system implemented through crowd-sourcing. But the post remained up, highly visible because of X’s algorithm. As of this writing, the post had more than two million views.
Musk’s own attention-seeking posts amid the violence demonstrate that. “All Tesla superchargers in Israel are free,” Musk posted. But his gesture was not all about altruism. There was a caveat. The post was restricted to replies from paid subscribers only.
Of greater concern is the platform’s role and influence in spreading distortion and disinformation. Musk bought Twitter for his own ideological reasons, and has viewed himself at war with “woke” values, which he argues erodes the foundations of democracy. Through his own personal crusades he has aligned himself with far-right ideologues and authoritarian leaders. And in turn he has garnered their loyalty.
Musk has made other changes on X that also have had a profound impact on how facts are represented. Earlier this month, X removed media-composed headlines from news articles. Musk argued the change was to “greatly improve the aesthetics” of the platform. But now users are shown images without context, allowing for bots, propagandists and even meme accounts to fill in the blanks with unsubstantiated claims. The result has created an alternative reality where conspiracies reign over fact.
As Twitter, the platform was a digital democratiser that gave voice to ordinary citizens beyond the confines of traditional media. In times of political upheaval or natural disaster, Twitter had a reputation for delivering on-the-ground reporting and firsthand accounts in real time.
Now it is Musk’s personal megaphone promoting his political views and business interests.
X’s representation of the events in Israel and Gaza reveal that the platform’s strengths for truth-telling are eroded and all but gone. Will we heed the warnings by Twitter’s demise or even realise the impact X now has on how we see the world?
