Elon Musk has pledged to “fix” X’s fact-checking tool in response to opinions that contradict President Donald Trump’s claim that Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyy is deeply unpopular in his country.
Row behind Trump’s attack on Zelensky on Thursday, Musk claimed that the “Community Note” feature of his social media platform was “game” by the government and traditional media.
Musk argued about his work with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) while reposting an anonymous right-wing X account that questioned the reliability of Ukrainian vote outfits.
“If Zelensky was actually loved by the Ukrainians, he would vote. Musk said in X, saying that the US intelligence agency estimates Zelenskyy’s approval is only 4%, and X Musk said in X, sharing.
“The reality is that he refused to hold elections because he was being undermined by the Ukrainians,” Musk suspends elections after declared martial law following Moscow’s 2022 violation. He stated, referring to Zelensky’s decision to do so.
“I’m going to challenge Zelensky to vote and refute this. He wouldn’t.”
Tesla and SpaceX CEO, one of Trump’s most powerful allies as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have said they have been working on X’s community note system, which attaches descriptive notes to controversial posts based on consensus. They did not provide evidence. User’s.
Musk, who appeared at a conservative political action conference with a chainsaw waving in honor of Argentine’s cost-cutting president Javier Mairi later Thursday, said a widely reported vote by the Kiev Institute for International Sociology said, “Zelensky Control.” “It was done.” ” and “I can’t trust you.”
Lucas Graves, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison University, has studied misinformation and disinformation, describing Musk’s comments as “very concerned.”
“As often happen in this type of rhetoric, the accusations are made that we are from a world where private platforms like X can systematically respond to the stage to support political interests and ownership alliances. A guide to what you need to pay attention to from the accuser: Graves told Al Jazeera.
“A well-designed community note systems can be useful checks for incorrect information. However, this requires transparent rules that allow users to easily display trustworthy information. , you can’t tweak it on your own whim.”
John Weavey, an associate professor of media innovation and technology at Northeastern University in Canada, says that an inevitable feature of crowdsourced fact-checking models is that platform owners or executives may not like the outcome. He said that it was.
“This is part of the bargain you make when implementing these kinds of mechanisms,” Weebey told Al Jazeera.
“Overall, I think community notes are a good approach, but they need to blend with other tools. X is currently relying so much on its way and complaining that leadership isn’t working well. It’s ironic.”
Coming up is a broadside of masks against Zelensky, the leader of Ukraine and engaged in a war of words over Washington’s efforts to reach deals with Russia to end the war in Ukraine .
On Wednesday, Trump was on the sidelines in Washington negotiations with Moscow, accusing Zelensky of being a “dictator” after Ukrainian leaders rejected his claim that Kiev was the war. raised concerns about this.
Trump also reflects previous claims that Zelenskyy was “very low” in his country’s polls, reflecting his previous claim that he has a just 4% approval rating.
In a poll released Wednesday by the Kyiv International Sociology Institute, 57% of respondents said they trusted Zelenskyy and rose 5 points since December.
However, as the war progressed, the popularity of Ukrainian leaders declined, falling from 90% in February last year to 64% in February last year.
Since controlling X, previously known as Twitter, in 2022, Musk has been heavily criticized for allowing and in some cases promoting misinformation on the platform.
An analysis published by the Nonprofit Center to counter digital hatred shows that almost three-quarters of samples of false or misleading posts about the 2024 US election did not display accurate notes that correct records. I understand that.
“I think X/Twitter is likely to become a Musk/Trump propaganda arm. In fact, it’s already happening,” says Gordon Pennycook, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, who studied misinformation. It’s there.
“Musk doesn’t like being modified, as typical of authoritarian oligarchs, so we want to reform our community notes.”
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