A new study conducted by NewsGuard experts shows that Musk’s policies have led to increased user interest in content sponsored by foreign governments and a sharp increase in the audience of pages publishing open propaganda.

Report details

Twitter routinely attempted to flag news pages it deemed “government-related.” This was explained by the government’s desire to draw attention to potential disinformation and propaganda. But later Musk rescinded this policy and was involved in several high-profile scandals regarding this function, in which he openly abused it. After this, Internet researchers noted an increase in user interaction with propaganda posts.

A report from NewsGuard analyzing trends in media claims that sites such as: Russia’s RT and TASS, China’s China Daily and Iran’s PressTV have all shown significant growth in user activity in the past few months. In the 90 days since the government flag was removed, activity from users using English versions of their accounts has increased by nearly 70 percent.

Here is what the researchers wrote: “Russian RT received the most activity after X users no longer had access to the information that the channel, which changed its name from the more transparent Russia Today a few years ago, was managed by the government of the country’s president, Vladimir Putin. The number of likes and reposts with the hashtag almost doubled, from 1.3 million to 2.” increased to .5 million. Following policy change X, Russia’s TASS increased engagement by 63%, Iran’s PressTV by 97%, and China’s Global Times by 26%.”.

Algorithms help promote propaganda

According to the same report, X’s special algorithm increases the visibility of propaganda content, allowing it to reach a wider audience. Before Musk’s takeover, Twitter maintained that material from state-controlled media would never be amplified by its algorithm. So such content is artificially restricted.

But NewsGuard claims that since Musk’s takeover, posts from sites like RT and China Daily have been “algorithmically suggested” in users’ For You feeds with some regularity. Previous studies have repeatedly highlighted this trend and shown that Musk’s changes allowed disinformation campaigns to gain greater visibility.

The study notes that the misinformation problem on Twitter/X did not start with Elon Musk. The platform has always been flooded with propaganda not from news organizations but from regular pages run by state-sponsored bots and trolls. But this complex landscape has become particularly confusing and dark during the billionaire’s reign.