Connect with us

Published

on

From the outset of this weekend’s Israel-Hamas conflict, graphic footage of abductions and military operations have spread like wildfire on social media platforms, including X, formerly known as Twitter. But disinformation on the platform has made it harder for users to assess what’s going on in the region.

Over the weekend, X flagged several posts as misleading or false, including a video purportedly showing Israeli airstrikes against Hamas in Gaza. Thousands of users saw the posts, and the most widely shared posts were flagged as misleading by the platform. Still, dozens of posts with the same video and caption were not flagged by X’s system, according to CNBC’s review.

The patchwork enforcement comes days after NBC News reported that X made cuts to its disinformation and election integrity team. Shortly before Hamas launched its surprise attack, X removed headlines from links on the platform, making external links difficult to tell apart from standard photos shared on X.

Before Elon Musk acquired Twitter, the company’s management had devoted significant resources to fighting manipulated or misleading information. After Musk took over, renaming the platform, he slashed head count in teams dedicated to fighting misinformation and criticized the company’s past work with the U.S. government on Covid-19 disinformation.

Under Musk, X has prioritized user-driven content tagging with Community Notes, the preexisting feature formerly known as Birdwatch. But a September study from the EU found that despite the feature, which adds crowdsourced context to posts, disinformation was more discoverable on X than on any other social media platform and received more engagement than on other platforms, on a relative basis.

Alex Goldenberg, an analyst at the Network Contagion Research Institute, studies hate and right-wing extremism on social media and in the real world. Goldenberg told CNBC that even before Musk’s tenure, Twitter had a challenging time handling non-English disinformation.

“I’ve often found that mis- and disinformation and incitement to violence in the English language are prioritized, but those in Arabic are often overlooked,” Goldenberg said. He added that NCRI has noted an uptick in “recycled videos and photos from older conflict being associated, intentionally sometimes, with this particular conflict.”

Users have noticed the impact of the changes to X’s content moderation, and some have fallen prey to sharing disinformation on the platform.

“It’s remarkable how Elon Musk has destroyed what was perhaps the best thing about Twitter: the ability to get relatively accurate and trustworthy data in real time when there’s a crisis,” Paul Bernal, an IT law professor at the University of East Anglia in England, wrote on X on Monday.

On Sunday, a British politician shared a video purportedly from a BBC correspondent. “Following some pretty appalling equivocation and whataboutary from the BBC yesterday and this morning, now this from a BBC journalist,” wrote Chris Clarkson, a member of parliament for Heywood & Middleton.

The video was not from a BBC correspondent; Clarkson wrote Monday that his “comments on the BBC stand” but conceded that the original post was not from a BBC journalist.

Although government verification now awards certain accounts a silver checkmark, verification for notable individuals and reporters was phased out in favor of paid Twitter Blue verification, making it “even more difficult to ascertain whether the messenger of a particular message or its content is authentic,” Goldenberg said.

Some Hamas-created propaganda videos have also been circulating on X. While the terrorist organization is banned from most social media platforms, including X, it continues to share videos on Telegram. Those videos — including some from the most recent assault on Israel — are often reshared onto X, Goldenberg told CNBC. And that can have real-world effects.

“As we’ve seen in the past, especially in May of 2021, for example, when tensions rise in the region, there’s a high possibility of a rise in hate crimes targeting the Jewish community outside of the region,” Goldenberg said.

Paid verification purportedly boosts a user’s posts and comments on X, and some posts tagged as misleading have come from those verified users. Musk himself has amplified such posts on several occasions — both pertaining to the conflict in Ukraine and more recently in Israel. On Sunday, Musk encouraged his 160 million followers to follow two accounts which Musk said had “good” content about the conflict.

One of those users had made anti-Semitic posts in the past, including one where the person told a Twitter user to “mind your own business, jew.” Musk later deleted his post promoting the account.

Correction: This article has been updated to correctly reflect Alex Goldenberg’s comment on English-language disinformation on X and Twitter. A previous version contained a transcription error.

Continue Reading

Technology

Elon Musk ratchets up attacks on Navarro as Tesla shares slump for fourth day

Published

on

By

Elon Musk ratchets up attacks on Navarro as Tesla shares slump for fourth day

Elon Musk (L), and Peter Navarro (R).

Reuters

As Tesla shares plummeted for a fourth straight day, CEO Elon Musk let loose on President Donald Trump’s top trade advisor Peter Navarro.

Musk, the world’s richest person, started going after Navarro over the weekend, posting on X that a “PhD in econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing,” a reference to Navarro’s degree. Whatever subtlety remained at the beginning of the week has since vanished.

On Tuesday, Musk wrote that “Navarro is truly a moron,” noting that his comments about Tesla being a “car assembler,” as much are “demonstrably false.” Musk called Navarro “dumber than a sack of bricks,” before later apologizing to bricks. Musk also called Navarro “dangerously dumb.”

Musk’s attacks on Navarro represent the most public spat between members of President Trump’s inner circle since the term began in January, and show that the steep tariffs announced last week on more than 180 countries and territories don’t have universal approval in the administration.

When asked about the feud in a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “Look, these are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs.”

“Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue,” she said.

For Musk, whose younger brother Kimbal — a restaurant owner, entrepreneur and Tesla board member — has joined in on the action, the name-calling appears to be tied to business conditions.

Tesla’s stock is down 22% in the past four trading sessions and 45% for the year. Tesla has lost more tha $585 billion in value since the calendar turned, equaling tens of billions of dollars in paper losses for Musk, who is also CEO of SpaceX and the owner of xAI and social network X.

Even before President Trump detailed his plan for widespread tariffs, he’d already placed a 25% tariff on vehicles not assembled in the U.S. Many analysts said Tesla could withstand those tariffs better than competitors because its vehicles sold in the U.S. are assembled domestically.

But the company’s production costs are poised to increase because of the tariffs on materials and parts from foreign suppliers. Canada and Mexico are among the leading sources of U.S. steel imports, and Canada is the nation’s largest supplier of aluminum, while China and Mexico are home to major suppliers of printed circuit boards to the automotive industry.

At a recent an event hosted by right-wing Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, Musk said, “Both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America.”

Musk, whose view on trade relations with Europe stands in stark contrast to the policies implemented by the president, has a vested interest in the region. Tesla has a large car factory outside of Berlin, and the European Commission previously turned to SpaceX for launches.

Even before the tariffs, Tesla’s business was faltering. Last week, the company reported a 13% year-over-year decline in first-quarter deliveries, missing analysts’ estimates. That report that landed days after Tesla’s stock price wrapped up its worst quarter since 2022.

Musk, who spent roughly $290 billion to help return Trump to the White House, is now leading the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which has slashed costs, eliminated regulations and cut tens of thousands of federal jobs. In the first quarter, Tesla was hit with waves of protests, boycotts and some criminal activity that targeted vehicles and facilities in response to Musk’s political rhetoric and his work in the White House.

WATCH: Brad Gerstner explains his Tesla position

Brad Gerstner explains his Tesla position

Continue Reading

Technology

Apple’s 4-day slide puts Microsoft back on top as most valuable company

Published

on

By

Apple's 4-day slide puts Microsoft back on top as most valuable company

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, laughs as he attends a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 23, 2020.

Denis Balibouse | Reuters

Apple‘s 23% plunge over the past four trading sessions has again turned Microsoft into the world’s most valuable public company.

As of Tuesday’s close, Microsoft is worth $2.64 trillion, while Apple’s market cap stands at $2.59 trillion.

While the market broadly is getting hammered by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plan, Apple is getting hit the hardest among tech’s megacap companies due to the iPhone maker’s reliance on China.

The Nasdaq is down 13% over the past four trading days, as President Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on imports from more than 100 countries has sparked fears of a recession brought on by rising prices. UBS analysts on Monday predicted that the price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max could jump as much as $350 in the U.S.

Both Apple and Microsoft, along with chipmaker Nvidia, were previously valued at upward of $3 trillion before the recent sell-off.

In January, Microsoft issued disappointing revenue guidance. Nevertheless, last week, as Jefferies analysts reduced their price targets on many software stocks, they wrote Microsoft was among the “companies who we view as more insulated” from tariff uncertainty.

Microsoft also had the highest market capitalization of any public company in early 2024, but Apple soon reclaimed the title.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

Tech stocks struggle with intraday gains amid tariff uncertainty

Continue Reading

Technology

Tech, semiconductor stocks bounce on tariff optimism, Nvidia jumps 7%

Published

on

By

Tech, semiconductor stocks bounce on tariff optimism, Nvidia jumps 7%

Technology stocks bounced Tuesday after three rocky trading sessions, spurred by rising optimism that President Donald Trump could potentially negotiate tariff deals with world leaders.

Nvidia led the Magnificent Seven group’s gains, rallying about 7%. Meta Platforms, Amazon, Tesla, Apple and Microsoft jumped at least 4% each. Alphabet rose about 3%.

The sector is coming off a wild trading session after speculation that the White House could potentially delay tariffs fueled volatile swings. Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Amazon and Nvidia finished higher, while Apple, Microsoft and Tesla posted losses.

Trump’s wide-sweeping tariff plans have sparked violent turbulence over the last three trading sessions. Trading volume on Monday hit its highest in nearly two decades. Technology stocks gyrated after the Nasdaq Composite posted its worst week in five years and the Magnificent Seven group lost $1.8 trillion in market value over two trading sessions.

Semiconductor stocks also rebounded Tuesday, with the VanEck Semiconductor ETF jumping more than 5% to build on a more than 2% gain from the previous session. Advanced Micro Devices, Lam Research and Micron Technology jumped about 6%.

Chipmakers were excluded from the recent tariffs, but have come under pressure on worries that higher duties could diminish demand for products they are used in and slow the economy. The sector is also expected to see tariffs further down the road.

Elsewhere, Broadcom surged 9% after announcing a $10 billion share buyback plan through the end of the year. Marvell Technology also bounced more than 9% after agreeing to sell its auto ethernet business for $2.5 billion in cash to Infineon Technologies.

WATCH: Tariff volatility erases majority of AI stock gains

Continue Reading

Trending