Twitter may have been overlooking misinformation superspreaders, and X probably isn't much better

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-05-23 04:00

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Twitter could be overlooking misinformation ‘superspreaders’, according to international researchers who analysed over two million tweets over a ten-month period in 2020, before the platform was bought by Elon Musk and transformed into ‘X’. The team set out to analyse these tweets to build on previous research, which found that a disproportionate amount of low-credibility content was spread by a small number of accounts. The analysis found these ‘superspreaders’ include pundits with large followings, low-credibility media outlets, personal accounts affiliated with those media outlets, and a range of influencers, and are primarily political in nature and use more toxic language than the typical user sharing misinformation. Despite Twitter’s team actively experimenting to mitigate the spread of misinformation at the time, the authors found evidence that Twitter was more lenient on superspreaders who were verified or had large followings due to potential negative public and political pressure. This is starkly contrasted by X’s recent decisions to lay off much of their content moderation staff and disband their election integrity team, they add.