Musk's Twitter takeover raises misinformation fear

WASHINGTON — With the United States' midterm elections less than two weeks away, Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter could unleash a fresh wave of election misinformation just as voters are casting ballots that will determine control of Congress for the next two years, political and media experts said.

Musk, chief executive of the electric carmaker Tesla, said he is a free speech "absolutist" and has vowed to loosen the reins on chatter within the social media app, which in recent years had striven to limit toxic content it viewed as dangerously false or discriminatory even as its global influence has widened.

Musk sought to address fears on Thursday, telling Twitter advertisers that the platform "cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences". On Friday, the entrepreneur announced he would form a "content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints".

But Musk has voiced skepticism about the site's permanent bans of figures such as former president Donald Trump, who lost his account and its nearly 90 million followers shortly after the attack on the Capitol in Washington by a mob of his supporters. Trump had used his account to falsely assert that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Musk has also criticized the site's moderation policies in the past, and his plans to make major cuts to staff could hamstring the site's ability to police its content, which it has struggled at times to do in the past.

A more permissive Twitter could help to amplify false narratives around key election results in the days after Nov 8 if some candidates refuse to accept the outcome and cry fraud, as some fear may happen.

Republicans said many social media platforms are biased against them, and numerous conservative Twitter accounts, including Republican politicians, on Friday welcomed Musk's takeover. Democrats fear that Trump supporters will promote far-right views or false claims of election fraud on Twitter if permitted.

The site has been a key political tool for years, offering politicians and activists around the world the ability to reach millions with largely unfiltered rhetoric.

Critics have warned that the site has also helped spread misinformation that undermines democratic principles and offers foreign actors an avenue for meddling.

" (Musk's acquisition) could certainly create a much bigger pathway for disinformation agents to spread harmful information on the platform," said Yosef Getachew, director of the media and democracy program with the nonpartisan organization Common Cause.

Agencies via Xinhua