00:04:49.080The level of disinformation on Israel-Hamas war being algorithmically promoted on Twitter is unlike anything I've ever been exposed to in my career as a political scientist.
00:04:58.560Justin Pendon, an open-source intelligence researcher, wrote,
00:05:01.940For many reasons, this is the hardest time I've ever had covering a crisis on here.
00:05:18.640And that's really what I've been seeing while trying to cover this on Twitter.
00:05:21.820You know, trying to make heads or tails of what's going on via Twitter
00:05:24.700necessitates so far beyond what you would think of as the normal critical thinking
00:05:29.480that we should all be expected to have when we're engaging with content online.
00:05:33.340It is basically impossible to find out what's going on,
00:05:36.180make sense of it, and find out what's true and what's not.
00:05:39.020It's like Elon Musk's Twitter policies have turned Twitter into a place where nobody can tell
00:05:43.200what is going on and what the truth is.
00:05:45.500And honestly, it seems like that is by design.
00:05:48.520I know that we joke about this a lot on the podcast,
00:05:51.080and I think it really comes from a place of, like, laugh to keep from crying.
00:05:55.740But this week was a really sobering reminder, at least for me, that this is real.
00:06:01.320The stakes are real. The stakes are very high.
00:06:03.900And I really have to say something that might not sound like me, or like I usually sound on the podcast, which is that we are simply not prepared for how bad this is.
00:06:14.800We are simply not prepared for how much worse this could get.
00:06:18.720So there are a few specific new Twitter policies under Elon Musk that I think are responsible for where we are today.
00:06:25.140The first is Elon's pay-for-verification scheme, where folks pay $8 to get blue checkmarks.
00:06:34.440And people who pay for verification get their content algorithmically amplified on the platform.
00:06:40.300Next is the new monetization scheme where people can get paid for how much engagement their tweets get.
00:06:45.660And then last is that legit news articles now just show up as pictures with no text, thus making them hard to get any context at all when scrolling by them.
00:06:55.020All of this has led to Twitter feeling like a place where you really cannot make heads or tails of anything,
00:06:59.840which is especially troubling when it comes to an emotionally charged, highly polarized, ongoing conflict, like the one that we're seeing now.
00:07:08.540So one of the biggest issues is that it's just very difficult to verify what is being said on Twitter right now.
00:07:14.780In a crisis or a breaking news situation, the most important bit of digital hygiene that one can practice is not amplifying or spreading claims that are unverified,
00:07:23.760especially big claims that are sure to trigger an emotional response.
00:07:27.160It is a personal standard that I try to live by when I'm online, though it's often difficult just due to the nature of how social media platforms work.
00:07:34.760You know, I think Twitter is especially prone to making us want to move very quickly because the platform has historically moved very quickly.
00:07:41.860So it takes a little bit of, like, mindfulness and, I guess, deprogramming to make yourself move a little bit slower and actually take a few steps to verify whatever you're seeing before just quickly smashing that retweet button.
00:07:54.060But on Twitter right now, verifying claims before spreading them is near impossible.
00:07:59.760It used to be much easier, and that was one of the good things about having a legit verification program pre-Elon Musk.
00:08:05.840Because if somebody had a blue checkmark, you could click on their profile and be reasonably sure they were who they said they were.
00:08:12.360You know, you click on a journalist account with a blue checkmark, at least you know,
00:08:15.620hey, the person making this claim has been verified to work at XYZ news organization that probably has some kind of journalistic standards.
00:08:23.440If they tweet something that is wrong, they will probably correct it or have some kind of accountability around it.
00:08:28.540But now, anyone can buy a blue checkmark, which ensures that more of us will see their tweets.
00:08:33.860Because people who buy blue checkmarks have their content algorithmically prioritized on this new version of Twitter.
00:08:39.900And even though we all had that campaign of delegitimizing and, like, making fun of people who bought blue checkmarks,
00:08:46.400I do still feel like we might have a holdover feeling of a blue checkmark indicating accuracy.
00:08:52.160Especially in times of crisis, because in a crisis, we're all moving quickly, just trying to quickly verify information.
00:08:57.880So it might take another moment or another additional layer of scrutiny for us to be like, wait, this blue checkmark is actually meaningless.
00:09:05.000I shouldn't just trust what this person is saying at face value, just because they have the blue checkmark.
00:09:09.940It's just another way that one of the very few guardrails that we had to depend on has now been removed and how risky that is during times of crisis or confusion.
00:09:19.280So there are a few big claims that I saw about the attack on Israel that I was working to verify before amplifying.
00:09:25.360But one that I want to focus on is one that you might have heard, which is that Hamas, quote, beheaded 40 infants.
00:09:31.700Kat Tenbarge and Melissa Chan over at NBC have a really good breakdown of trying to verify this claim.
00:09:38.060Their piece was published on Thursday.
00:09:40.360We're recording this on Friday morning.
00:09:42.280This is a developing situation, so whatever I'm about to say, things might change after we actually publish this episode.
00:11:59.100But this did not keep that claim from being repeated by President Biden, who said,
00:12:03.500quote, I never really thought I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists
00:12:07.320beheading children. But soon after, the White House clarified that Biden was referring to
00:12:11.860reports from Israel about beheaded children and cited several media reports of beheadings.
00:12:16.440So why are these claims such a big deal? Because now they've kind of become part of how we
00:12:21.500understand what's happening, whether it's accurate or not. And they become part of the
00:12:25.560justification for escalation and sort of just become the truth of the situation, whether or
00:12:31.460not it is grounded in fact. NBC reported that on Wednesday, the phrase, did Hamas kill babies,
00:12:37.320saw the biggest increase in search interest on Google of anything related to the war,
00:12:41.540and that 40 babies beheaded claim had over 44 million impressions on Twitter.
00:12:46.540Now, these claims are obviously highly emotionally resonant and disturbing.
00:12:52.280It's the kind of specific detail that would get an emotional rise out of anyone.
00:12:56.320But right now, as of Friday morning, I cannot tell you whether this incredibly viral claim
00:13:02.060that has dominated the conversation is actually true or not.
00:13:05.300It might be true, it might be false, it might be somewhere in the middle.
00:13:09.060And it strikes me that we ought to be able to verify a claim that 44 million different people engaged with.
00:13:15.600And like, I'm not even really sure how to describe this, but I have seen this vibe on Twitter where people are kind of pushing back against the idea that journalists would even need to or want to verify this claim before amplifying it.
00:13:30.100kind of making it seem like verifying it is a way to minimize the horror of the situation.
00:13:36.060And I think that really shows the danger of making these kind of specific claims
00:13:40.380if they are not verified, because ultimately it makes the conversation about that specific claim,
00:13:46.260you know, that X amount of babies were killed in X specific horrific way.
00:13:49.760And it becomes about trying to find out if that specific claim is true or not,
00:13:54.040you know, tracing the origins, researching it, all of that.
00:13:56.760So that one specific big claim becomes a sticking point that kind of takes us away from the larger conversation.
00:14:03.100Because here's the thing, that situation is truly awful.
00:14:07.660We don't need to add highly emotionally charged, specific, unsubstantiated claims to the conversation to understand that.
00:14:14.420And ultimately, I think that is the kind of climate that bad actors want, where it doesn't really matter what the truth is.
00:14:20.940It's how we get to a world where the truth and facts and the reality of what happened kind of don't matter.
00:15:20.940If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:15:27.260This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:15:39.640I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:15:46.820I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:15:50.000From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:15:56.740It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:16:03.900Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:16:13.440Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:16:28.880So another kind of complex claim that I want to dig into that I saw on Twitter is that Black Lives Matter is celebrating the attack on Israel.
00:16:38.080So Black Lives Matter Chicago published a graphic depicting a Hamas militant in a parachute.
00:16:43.880The militants used parachutes in the initial attack on October 7th.
00:16:48.200Obviously, the implication being that they were glorifying the attack.
00:16:53.980So it is not in dispute that a Twitter account associated with Black Lives Matter Chicago did, in fact, tweet it out.
00:17:00.680But something that I know is that when people say Black Lives Matter as an entity, they could be referring to a few different things.
00:17:08.000You know, there is the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which is a nonprofit organization with all of the nonprofit, like, paperwork and certifications from the government, like, 990s, that was founded by Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza.
00:17:23.440There's Black Lives Matter state affiliates.
00:17:26.080There's people or groups who are sort of loosely associated with Black Lives Matter.
00:17:30.220And then there's Black Lives Matter kind of the movement, you know, where you may have somebody who has no official affiliation with any one organized group, but is in solidarity with racial justice sort of generally.
00:17:43.520And sort of as a side note, one of the ways that we've kind of gotten here is through this vibe where anybody who was protesting against racial justice was being called, quote, a Black Lives Matter activist, regardless of their affiliation with the actual organization.
00:17:56.780Which just kind of created this nebulous idea that anybody who was black and against racial justice was somehow affiliated with Black Lives Matter, even if they weren't.
00:18:05.460So a Twitter account called Black Lives Matter Chicago did, in fact, tweet out this image with a picture of a Hamas fighter in a parachute, kind of glorifying the attack.
00:18:17.180And lots of people, you know, even elected officials, were condemning it, saying, oh, Black Lives Matter is despicable for celebrating this attack on Israel.
00:18:26.560And specifically saying things like, oh, well, this is why I never supported Black Lives Matter or, you know, Black Lives Matter is anti-Semitic, all of that.
00:18:36.500But on October 10th, the Black Lives Matter Global Network, which is the Black Lives Matter nonprofit organization, basically said, we have no affiliation with that account.
00:22:38.320They will exploit and inflame those divisions because when we're operating from a place of solidarity with each other, we are much less likely to fall for their lies.
00:22:47.400So now more than ever, we all need to be operating from a place of empathy and genuine solidarity with each other.
00:22:53.180That is the only way to confront this.
00:22:55.200So there's unverified or difficult-to-verify claims, but we also have the issue of just fake or intentionally misrepresented claims flooding Twitter right now.
00:23:04.960On Saturday, a doctored White House news release posted online falsely claimed that Biden had authorized $8 billion in emergency aid to Israel.
00:23:14.380The fact that it was fake did not stop it from being posted across the internet and rising to the top of Google's search results.
00:23:20.860NBC reported that one of the first results on Google is a false article from the Mumbai-based publication First Post.
00:23:28.180The article appeared on the Top Stories module on Google alongside articles by Axios and The Wall Street Journal.
00:23:33.620Even though it's fake, it did not stop several news outlets from writing it up as if it were a real story,
00:23:39.080and then those news reports showing up with high prominence on Google Search.
00:23:43.140Verified accounts on Twitter were then sharing this fake White House report.
00:23:48.220And keep in mind, verified accounts are eligible for Twitter's revenue-sharing scheme, if Elon
00:25:44.500If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:25:50.400This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters,
00:25:56.840pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:26:02.880I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:26:10.000I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:26:13.520From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:26:19.520It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:26:27.000Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:26:36.600Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:26:52.440So as we've talked about, a lot of the features that would help curb the spread of inaccurate information on Twitter, Elon has either gotten rid of or really scaled back.
00:27:01.280Instead, he has promoted the Community Notes program, where people can add notes to posts to give more context.
00:27:09.680Well, as NBC's Ben Goggin reports, not well.
00:27:13.680The system's Community Notes relies on approved volunteers to suggest notes to be appended to posts.
00:27:19.000Those posts are then voted on by other volunteers and eventually published after they reach a certain threshold of helpful votes from people with different points of view, according to Twitter.
00:27:28.140This is just a really ineffective way to fact check things.
00:27:33.600And basically, it sounds like there is just too much inaccurate information on Twitter right now that the community notes program just cannot keep up.
00:27:41.620NBC looked at two viral claims related to the conflict, the doctored press release saying that Biden had approved billions in aid, and a debunked claim that an Orthodox church in Gaza was destroyed.
00:27:52.720Only 8% of 120 posts related to those stories had published community notes, while 26% had unpublished notes from volunteers that had yet to be approved.
00:28:02.880About two-thirds of the top posts NBC News reviewed had no proposed or published community notes on them.
00:28:08.800So just debunked false information with no fact check or note whatsoever on Twitter to be viewed, amplified, spread, and monetized.
00:28:20.440Kim Pacasio, a community notes volunteer, wrote on Instagram's threads,
00:28:24.860All weekend we were furiously vetting, writing, and approving community notes on hundreds of posts which were demonstrably fake news.
00:28:32.240It took two plus days for the back room to press whatever button to finally make all of our warnings publicly viewable.
00:28:38.580By that time, you know the rest of that sentence.
00:28:41.260Pocasio told NBC News that she ended up just tweeting out proposed community notes herself
00:28:45.420in response to misinformation out of total frustration.
00:28:49.140Which I completely understand that frustration because this system does not work.
00:28:54.280And it seems like Twitter has kind of realized that it's not working.
00:28:57.660According to a post from At Community Notes on October 3rd,
00:29:01.460Starting today, notes will appear on average of 1.5 hours faster, and as much as 3.5 hours faster in some cases.
00:29:09.500Twitter's new Maybe CEO, Linda Yaccarino, added,
00:29:13.160Community notes now appear more quickly on X.
00:29:15.740They're a vital tool for adding context and combating potential misinformation.
00:29:19.640Become part of this important community.
00:29:21.480And I just find it gross that she is talking about this like it's some cool new bell or whistle that people should be excited about,
00:29:29.160as opposed to an obviously ineffective way to approach what should be a standard infrastructure
00:29:35.280of how a platform as important as Twitter should be responsibly run.
00:29:39.720Because here's the thing, Twitter should not be depending on a crew of frustrated volunteers
00:29:44.240to ensure that false information that could actually put people's lives in danger
00:29:48.740is not being amplified and monetized on the platform they run.
00:29:53.100You know, these people are volunteers, they're not even being paid.
00:29:55.720And even Elon Musk seemed to see this as an issue.
00:29:59.160He tweeted, as always, please try to stay as close to the truth as possible, even for stuff you don't like.
00:30:04.740But that was after he himself was telling his 44 million followers to follow accounts known for amplifying lies in anti-Semitism.
00:30:12.960Musk suggested that folks follow War Monitors and Sent Defender, quote, for following the war in real time.
00:30:19.900But both of these accounts spread a false claim that there had been an explosion near the White House back in May.
00:30:25.360And the War Monitors account that Elon suggested folks follow has a history of posting anti-Semitic comments on Twitter.
00:30:32.140The account replied to a post from Kanye West during his anti-Semitic meltdown, adding, quote,
00:30:37.000The overwhelming majority of people in the media and banks are Zionists, while telling another Twitter user in June to go worship a Jew, little bro.
00:30:47.080Now, Musk did eventually delete that post, suggesting that people follow those two accounts for news about the conflict.0.73
00:30:52.480but he did so after it was up for three hours and viewed by 11 million people.
00:30:57.880So to be clear, I think this is particularly bad on Twitter right now, and I'm not alone.
00:31:03.880Business Insider spoke to Sander van der Linden, a professor at the University of Cambridge
00:31:08.080and author of Foolproof, Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity,
00:31:13.760I would be fairly confident to say that a lot of what we're seeing right now
00:31:16.880is a direct result of the policy changes that were implemented by Musk.
00:31:20.200Van der Linden said that Musk's early changes to the platform, including gutting the trust and safety team, changing the verification process, and introducing monetized content are not only allowing, but also motivating the spread of misinformation on the platform.
00:31:34.560The fact that people with verified accounts can monetize their content means they have the wrong incentive, he said.
00:31:40.200They're incentivized to spread content that's going to get engagement, clicks, and ultimately make them money.
00:31:46.000Whatever polarizing images they can find, whether it's real or fake, is going to elicit clicks.
00:31:51.480Which I think is part of how we got to where we are today.
00:31:54.220Now, there might be a silver lining because a change might be coming.
00:31:58.380EU Commissioner Theory Brenton served Musk and other social media platforms with a letter,
00:32:03.240giving them 24 hours to comply with a request for information about how Twitter is following EU's Digital Services Act,
00:32:08.720which has very strict rules about how platforms handle inaccurate information and material from extremist groups.
00:32:14.420And of course, because it's Elon Musk we're talking about, Musk basically tried to bait Theory Brenton into a public fight demanding that the EU publicly post the violations that Twitter is responsible for, which like, give me a break.
00:32:29.800Like, you can just look with your eyes and see the violations that Twitter is responsible for, like anybody who has been on Twitter at all the last week could probably tell you, or you could just listen to this podcast.