Once upon a time, Twitter (now renamed X) routinely tried to label what it deemed “state affiliated” news sites, in an effort to highlight potential government disinformation and propaganda. After Elon Musk took over the platform late last year, however, he decided to put the kibosh on that policy. Predictably, new research shows that, since Musk did away with the site’s media labeling, user engagement with foreign propaganda has exploded.
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A new report from NewsGuard, which analyzes media trends, claims that sites like Russia’s RT and TASS, China Daily, and Iran’s PressTV, have seen explosions in user engagement since X purged its media labels earlier this year. Indeed, the report claims that, in the 90 days that followed the removal of the “state affiliated” labels from these organizations, engagement with posts from the English-language versions of their accounts shot up by some 70 percent.
The report notes:
Russia’s RT gained the most engagement after X users no longer had access to the information that the outlet — which changed its name from the more transparent Russia Today several years ago — is operated by the government of the country’s president, Vladimir Putin. It nearly doubled its engagement, to 2.5 million likes and reposts from 1.3 million, after the removal of the disclosure. Following the change in X policy, Russia’s TASS grew engagement by 63 percent, Iran’s PressTV by 97 percent, and China’s Global Times by 26 percent.
(It should be noted that, though the U.S. government has officially accused them of being propaganda outlets, some of these organizations have previously disavowed claims that they lack editorial independence. An ongoing argument exists over what exactly counts as a “state affiliated” media organization.)
Foreign propaganda is getting boosted by X’s algorithm, researchers claim
Why, exactly, are users engaging with this kind of content so much more frequently? Well, according to NewsGuard’s report, X’s own algorithm appears to be amplifying the content, thus creating a larger audience for it. Prior to Musk’s takeover, Twitter claimed that content from “state affiliated” media could never be boosted by its algorithm. However, NewsGuard says that, since Musk’s takeover, stories from sites like RT and China Daily are “algorithmically recommended” in users’ “For You” feeds with some regularity. Previous research has highlighted this trend, showing that Musk’s changes have allowed foreign disinformation campaigns to gain increasing visibility.
Jack Brewster, an analyst with NewsGuard, told Gizmodo it’s clear that, under Musk, “X now gives readers much less information about the sources from which they’re getting their news” and that the site’s recently tweaked information filtering processes have clearly “had a substantial effect on how disinformation spreads on the platform.”
Musk’s changes have made an already complex informational landscape that much more confusing
Of course, it’s important to note that Twitter/X’s disinformation problem did not be
