Billionaire X owner Elon Musk is intensifying his efforts to influence public opinion ahead of the US presidential election, including spreading false claims, Deutsche Welle reports.
The writer notes that the world’s richest person’s involvement in American politics reflects how billionaire social media platform owners can sway public opinion and, consequently, elections.
“Since Elon Musk took over X, the platform has evolved into a hotbed of hate speech and misinformation – with many such posts coming from Mr Musk himself”, Imran Ahmed, head of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), told DW.
Unlike most tech billionaires and political donors, Musk’s political involvement has become increasingly visible in recent months ahead of the November 5 presidential election.
According to a recent CCDH report, Musk’s false or misleading claims about the US election on X garnered 1.2 billion views between January and July 2024.
The report highlights several of Musk’s controversial claims, including allegations about illegal immigrant voting, sharing AI-generated fake images of Vice President Kamala Harris, and questioning Michigan’s voter rolls.
Sander van der Linden, a Cambridge University professor and author of “Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity”, told DW that misinformation erodes democratic dialogue quality, reduces trust in the electoral process, and “can even change how some people vote”.
With a fortune exceeding $263 billion according to Forbes, Musk wields considerable influence through his platform, where he has more than 200 million followers.
Since acquiring Twitter and rebranding it as X, Musk has reinstated Donald Trump’s account, which now has over 92 million followers.
Van der Linden suggests Musk’s motives may be business-related, speculating that a Trump victory could benefit his companies through “more NASA contracts with SpaceX, more federal contracts with Starlink, and less government oversight of X”.
(information from Deutsche Welle, protothema.gr)
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