Elon Musk has announced that his social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, has removed the team responsible for monitoring election misinformation.
The tool for reporting misinformation has been taken away, except in the European Union, which has raised concerns from thinktank Reset Australia ahead of the country’s aboriginal rights referendum next month.
In a post on the platform, Musk stated that the election integrity team was undermining election integrity.
“Yeah, they’re gone,” he added.
His comment was in response to reports that the ability to report election misinformation has been removed, except in the European Union.
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The feature was introduced in the US, South Korea, and Australia in August 2021 and was expanded last year. Major elections are scheduled to take place in the US and UK in the next 18 months.
This comes just days after the European Union’s commissioner implementing a disinformation code, Věra Jourová, stated that X “is the platform with the largest ratio of mis/disinformation”.
The European Commission conducted a six-month survey of disinformation across social media sites.
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Musk spoke about plans to charge people for using X in a conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Since Musk purchased the site last year, misinformation and the removal of hate speech have been a contentious topic.
According to Musk, users may no longer be able to block people from viewing and interacting with their posts, as he stated last month.
X is currently suing an anti-hate speech group that accused the billionaire of overseeing an increase in abuse and disinformation on the platform.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has been a consistent critic of Musk‘s leadership since he acquired the company for $44bn (£38bn).
