Philadelphia-area election officials met earlier this year for a conference on election threats related to cybersecurity and artificial intelligence ahead of the Nov. 5 election, in which Pennsylvania is poised to play a major role.

Representatives of major social media companies offered what they could do to get the content removed. Delaware County Elections Director Jim Allen described it as “pants-burning lies.”

The response from X, formerly known as Twitter, caught Allen’s attention.

“Twitter goes out there and says we believe in limiting access, not speech, in keeping with our CEO,” Allen said. He was dismayed to learn that one of the nation’s largest social media companies would refuse to remove verified information and instead make recommendations. IT this will limit the spread of information after it is already there.

Allen said that freedom of expression means “fire!” “Twitter’s representative basically said, ‘You can shout in a crowded room,'” he said, citing First Amendment jurisprudence that holds that it doesn’t allow you to shout. in a crowded theater. “This is a complete abdication of accountability in terms of the spread of misinformation.”

X has been fertile ground for misinformation over the past few election cycles, but the key difference this year is that the company owner is now an active participant in the spread of misinformation.

Last week, X owner Elon Musk He chose to share a post claiming that 5,200 people had registered to vote at an address The Philadelphia social services organization spread like wildfire.

Musk’s post, which said “this is crazy” for sharing false information shared by another account, was viewed 16.3 million times; 58,000 people shared it on their profiles.

By comparison, a post by Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein fact-checking the claim was shared 40 times and had 16,000 views.

Since Musk acquired the platform in 2022, has rolled back content moderation strategies implemented by previous leadership, allowing false claims to go virtually unchecked. And he himself has helped spread misinformation to his more than 202 million followers. He is the most followed user on X, surpassing even the former President Donald TrumpA person with 92 million followers.

In a year when election officials were already extremely concerned about dangerous misinformation that cast doubt on the integrity of the election and created an environment where political violence could occur, Musk and X added fuel to the fire.

“The platform was designed to elevate his content, but he actually did what Trump did, in terms of taking ideas that were on the sidelines and taking content that was on the sidelines and pushing them to tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people,” he said. Montgomery County Electoral College.

The Inquirer could not reach X for comment, and Musk’s political action committee did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Musk, the world’s richest man, has stepped up efforts over the past month to help deliver Trump’s crucial Pennsylvania capitulation on Nov. 5, mostly through the pro-Trump America PAC that sponsors Musk’s investment campaign. Pennsylvania city halls and a Legally questionable $1 million lottery for undecided voters.

But probably nothing has the reach of Musk’s personal X account, which has become a disseminator of election misinformation at the behest of right-wing views.

“This whole platform is a cesspool of misinformation,” Allen said of X.

Musk once said that since October 1The overall goal of the X platform is to be the best source of truth in the world” – has repeatedly spread the false claim that Democrats are transporting undocumented immigrants to swing states, including Pennsylvania, to turn them blue. Reposted and allowed disinformation about voting machines in the state A fake video produced by Russia, One Bucks County Election workers tear up ballots to keep them circulating on the platform days after they have been debunked.

Some features of X also led to misinformation. Grok, X’s artificial intelligence-supported assistant Voter fraud spreads conspiracy theories. and America PAC created an “Election Integrity Community” that became an echo chamber of election misinformation and conspiracy theories driven by X users, not professional election administrators.

Associate dean and professor Sunil Wattal said the Election Integrity Community provides a venue for “simple, innocuous things” like minor technical issues to be amplified and denigrated on a larger scale. Temple University and an expert on digital transformation and fake news.

“The fact that one side of the aisle is going to these sites and being fed this misinformation that’s really unverified is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know, really, it’s not very credible, like a picture or a story or something.” “It could be a simple mistake or something completely harmless,” Wattal said.

Election officials are spending time debunking misinformation shared on the site, whether online or through residents repeating what they’ve heard in public meetings or lawsuits.

Makhija said Montgomery County has begun holding virtual town hall meetings to answer election-related questions and share information on the county’s public platforms. Mahija Contributed a video to the New York Times opinion page seeks to debunk myths about election fraud.

The day after Musk tweeted about voters experiencing homelessness, Philadelphia Commissioner Omar Sabir held a press conference to remind homeless residents that they were allowed and encouraged to vote in the election.

Bluestein persistently responded to viral misinformation on the platform in an attempt to set the record straight.

“Whether someone has 200 million followers or two, it is incumbent on all of us to get the facts right and share only accurate information,” Bluestein said at an unrelated conference. news conference. “Misinformation and disinformation spread around can lead to real harassment, real threats, and real violence.”

On Twitter in 2020, misinformation existed on the platform, but there were more guardrails. Presidential professor and digital policy expert Deen Freelon said users could face bans, suspensions or warnings for content that violates terms of service. University of Pennsylvania.

Trump was banned from the platform in the final days of his presidency following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, following months of conspiracy-mongering by the former president. he was Reinstated by Musk in November 2022.

But Freelon said the platform’s guardrails were removed “under the guise of freedom of expression.” Many accounts banned for misinformation or hate speech have been reactivated under Musk, and the billionaire has also significantly reduced publicly available data for researchers to determine how much misinformation has been spread.

“The fact that a person like that is at the head of social media, a social network, and is so clearly biased against one candidate, especially in this election, creates an opportunity for the entire platform to be biased in one direction,” Wattal said. “These elections are not good for society or the country.”