Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has become embroiled in popular conspiracy theories after former President Donald Trump was shot at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. X CEO Elon Musk “fully supports” the former president on the platform in the wake of Saturday’s shooting and donated “substantial amounts of money” to a Trump super PAC the day before the rally. Help him get re-elected.
According to The Verge, after the shooting, the platform promoted tags such as “false flag” and “staged” in its list of trending topics. Multiple posts on There is no evidence for either. The posts, which have thousands of likes, like this one, claim Trump’s sniper team had sighted the gunmen and deliberately kept them close.
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As The Verge points out, other major social media platforms responded more effectively in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. YouTube highlights news clips and directs search results to trusted news reports and verified creators. Facebook primarily shows results from news outlets and eliminated its Trending Topics section in 2018.
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X did not respond to a request for comment, and his email address automatically responded with “Busy now, please check again later.” The platform’s official account did post, however, simply saying “Global Town Square” — a reference to Musk’s original goal of free speech absolutism when he acquired Twitter in 2022.
Tweet may have been deleted
Given the current news surrounding the Trump assassination attempt, it’s not surprising that there is a lack of moderation in rampant misinformation. Since acquiring X, Musk has moved further to the right politically, including reviving right-wing accounts like Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate.
Some high-paying advertisers have also left the site due to its moderation issues and the spread of conspiracy theories. However, it doesn’t look like X’s error message problem will be fixed anytime soon, as Musk told fleeing advertisers to “fuck off.”
