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Greater than two dozen Home Democrats on Tuesday accused Elon Musk’s X of “profiting off violent content material by a terrorist group” and demanded that he and CEO Linda Yaccarino handle Hamas-related content material on the social media platform.
“The platform has turn into a hotbed of misinformation and terrorist propaganda,” wrote the group of 27 Democrats, led by Reps. Dan Goldman of New York and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, in a letter obtained by CNBC.
The already “inexcusable” subject of antisemitic content material on X, they wrote, had turn into “outright indefensible” for the reason that lethal Oct. 7 terror assault in Israel by Hamas militants. The U.S. has labeled Hamas a terror group since 1997.
“Given the numerous flagrant examples of X profiting off this content material, we want detailed solutions from X in contemplating potential laws that may stop such exercise sooner or later,” wrote the lawmakers.
They gave Musk and Yaccarino till Dec. 1 to supply “all types of written communications” associated to content material moderation for any posts or accounts related to Hamas.
Along with the data, the Home Democrats requested Yaccarino and Musk to element how X plans to handle Hamas-related content material presently on the platform. In addition they need to know what modifications the corporate “plans to implement to make sure that the dangerous unfold of terrorist propaganda doesn’t occur once more.”
X didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
The letter comes as Musk, the world’s richest man, and X, the platform he purchased for $44 billion final yr, fend off new accusations of antisemitism which might be threatening to chop deeply into the corporate’s ad-based income mannequin.
Apple, Disney, and Comcast, the guardian firm of CNBC, are a number of the main manufacturers that paused their internet advertising on X final week, after Musk publicly agreed with an antisemitic conspiracy principle that “Jewish communities” have been pushing “dialectical hatred towards whites.”
“You’ve got stated the precise reality,” Musk wrote final Wednesday in response to that publish.
The change drew fierce condemnation from X customers, Wall Avenue traders and Washington politicos. The White Home accused Musk of selling “antisemitic and racist hate.”
The fallout coincided with a brand new report from the progressive nonprofit watchdog group Media Issues for America, which accused X of putting advertisements from main manufacturers subsequent to posts that promoted Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.
Musk has vehemently denied allegations that he’s bigoted, writing in a publish on Sunday that media experiences labeling him antisemitic over his rhetoric are “bogus,” and “nothing may very well be farther from the reality.”
“I want solely one of the best for humanity and a affluent and thrilling future for all,” he wrote.
He has additionally repeatedly slammed Media Issues as “pure evil” and vowed to file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” on Monday towards the outlet “and ALL those that colluded on this fraudulent assault on our firm.”
Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal promoting chief whom Musk tapped in Might as his CEO, stated Thursday that X has “been extraordinarily clear about our efforts to fight antisemitism and discrimination.”
Media Issues president Angelo Carusone in an announcement Saturday slammed Musk’s authorized risk as a “meritless” effort to “silence reporting that he even confirmed is correct.”
The letter from Goldman and Raskin on Tuesday largely prevented personally singling out Musk over his controversial posts.
As an alternative, the Democrats highlighted quite a few X accounts which have reportedly been “spreading Hamas terrorist propaganda movies glorifying barbaric acts of violence towards Israelis.”
They cited experiences final month from the Tech Transparency Mission, or TTP, the analysis arm of the nonprofit watchdog Marketing campaign for Accountability, and the nonprofit suppose tank Institute for Strategic Dialogue, or ISD.
The TTP investigation discovered accounts that paid for X’s Premium service sharing graphic, uncensored movies together with “bloodied our bodies on the bottom, and rocket and drone assaults on Israeli tanks and automobiles.”
These movies had additionally been featured on the web site of Hamas’ navy wing and have been posted on X in obvious violation of the corporate’s content material insurance policies, in line with TTP.
An ISD report, in the meantime, recognized 128 posts from 45 distinctive accounts “containing glorification and assist for terrorist content material on X” in simply 24 hours between Oct. 11 and Oct. 12.
Each experiences famous that one of many Premium accounts spreading Hamas propaganda and antisemitic messages had been promoted by Musk himself in a since-deleted publish.
The experiences additionally confirmed that X is “making the most of the unfold of this grotesque and dangerous propaganda by way of account subscription charges and advert income,” the lawmakers wrote.
By shopping for X Premium, the accounts recognized within the TPP and ISD experiences are “paying for verification with none formalized vetting course of and being promoted by the web site’s algorithm,” the Democrats wrote.
The letter additionally cited a mid-October report from the misinformation tracker NewsGuard, which analyzed 250 high-engagement posts that promoted false or unproven claims associated to the Israel-Hamas Conflict. it discovered that 186 of the 250 got here from accounts that had paid for Premium verification.
