The posts show Musk drawing attention to misinformation about everything from the war in Ukraine to the attack on US Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's husband. Last week, the billionaire boosted a tweet that wrongly suggested doctors misdiagnosed flu cases as Covid-19 deaths.
"One of the greatest mysteries of Covid-19: Where did the flu go in 2020 and 2021?" an account called "KanekoaTheGreat" said, to which Musk replied: "Good question."
It was one of at least 40 times the billionaire replied to the profile, which has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, since purchasing Twitter for $44 billion nearly six months ago. He has only replied to a handful of accounts more in that time.
Using data from PolitiTweet, a website that tracked public figures' posts until Twitter cut off its access, AFP reviewed thousands of replies Musk published between late October and March.
He shared a fabricated CNN segment, called a made-up quote "wise words" and falsely claimed police escorted a rioter through the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. He amplified a post blaming mass shootings on LGBTQ individuals and endorsed a fake casualty count from Ukraine.
Musk has also downplayed Covid-19 and promoted spurious claims about vaccines causing blood clots, miscarriages and heart problems.
"We are running out of 'conspiracies' that turned out to be true!" the Twitter owner said in March, replying to a tweet that listed Covid-19 and vaccine safety among the "biggest media lies."
Days later, he tweeted that the "best way to fight misinformation is to respond with accurate information."
Experts say Musk's activity is concerning -- and not just because of his online influence.
"Musk has almost 135 million Twitter followers and forced his engineers to increase the reach of his tweets, so we should worry when he spreads misinformation," Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth College professor who studies misperceptions in politics, told AFP.
"I'm most worried, though, about what these tweets reveal about the judgment of the person who determines the policies of a major social media platform."
- Musk's feed -
Researchers have tied Twitter's recent policy changes -- including Musk's reinstatement of suspended accounts and its overhaul of verification practices -- to spikes in misinformation.
NewsGuard, a company that assesses websites' credibility, found accounts paying for Twitter's subscription service are inundating the site with false claims.
Musk is driving attention to some of these accounts.
"Got the Elon Musk stamp of approval," said "KanekoaTheGreat" on Telegram after one such reply.
A January study from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank, recorded a "staggering" increase in Musk's interactions with right-wing accounts since acquiring Twitter, including several profiles other research identified as spreaders of US election misinformation.
Musk has repeatedly amplified posts from sources such as the pro-Donald Trump page "Catturd," the anti-LGBTQ account "Libs of TikTok" and the conspiratorial website ZeroHedge.
Ian Miles Cheong, a far-right blogger, has received at least 60 replies from Musk -- topping all but a few other profiles, according to AFP's analysis. In one instance, Musk amplified a tweet blaming Joe Biden for an immigration program that started under Trump.
"Musk is elevating some of the worst voices on Twitter," Nyhan told AFP. "These interactions are likely to increase the reach and prominence of the accounts."
In some cases, the Twitter boss has helped mainstream false narratives.
After an intruder broke into Pelosi's California residence and struck the lawmaker's husband with a hammer in October, Musk tweeted a link to an article claiming he was drunk and quarreling with a male prostitute. #Pelosigaylover trended on Twitter.
Court filings and footage of the incident disproved the claims, which stemmed from a site that had previously published misinformation. But the damage was done.
"It's really sad for the country that people of that high visibility would separate themselves from the facts and the truth in such a blatant way," Nancy Pelosi said at the time. "It is traumatizing to those affected by it. They don't care about that, obviously."
Twitter responded to AFP's requests for comment with the poop emoji, an auto-reply Musk launched in March.
Musk touts new moderation policy to reassure advertisers
Miami (AFP) April 18, 2023 -
Twitter head Elon Musk on Tuesday attempted to reassure wary advertisers by hyping up the site's newly introduced content moderation policy against hateful material.
Speaking at a meeting in Florida, the controversial billionaire outlined new rules, first announced Monday, to limit the reach of tweets that do not conform to the platform's guidelines.
"If somebody has something hateful to say, it doesn't mean he should have a microphone," the self-described free-speech absolutist told gathered journalists.
"He still should be able to say it, but it needs to be not them pushing it on people," he added.
Under the new policy, unveiled in a blog post titled "Freedom of Speech, Not Reach," Twitter will soon begin tagging posts whose visibility has been limited.
The labels will "bring a new level of transparency to enforcement actions," the blog post said.
"Tweets with these labels will be made less discoverable on the platform. Additionally, we will not place ads adjacent to content that we label."
Since purchasing the so-called bird app in a rollercoaster $44 billion deal last year, Musk has sharply reined in content moderation on the platform, allowing the return of many users who had been banned for posting tweets that incite hate or spread misinformation.
At the same time, he also reduced the company's workforce from more than 7,500 to fewer than 2,000 employees.
Last week, US public radio NPR said it was quitting Twitter after the site labeled the highly respected news outlet's account as "state-affiliated media," branding it the same way as media in authoritarian countries such as Russia or China.
The tag was later amended to read "government-funded media," which was also applied to Britain's BBC.
Following the row, Canada's CBC/Radio-Canada and Swedish public radio Sveriges Radio (SR) also quit the social network.
The drama came against the backdrop of the rollout of yet another contentious new policy, as Twitter has said that starting April 20, it will only grant its famous blue checkmark to accounts that pay for its Twitter Blue service.
According to analyst Jasmine Enberg at market research firm Insider Intelligence, Twitter's revenue is set to drop 28 percent this year, because "advertisers don't trust Musk."
But for Musk, the ability to tinker with Twitter's protocol might be worth the financial risk of spooking advertisers.
"It's totally cool to say that you want to have your advertisement appear in certain places in Twitter and not in other places," Musk said Tuesday.
"But it's not cool to try to say what you can do or not do. And if that means Twitter loses hundreds of thousands of dollars, we'll lose it," he said.
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