Only a few weeks ago Elon Musk was at the forefront of a public debate about how far social networks in general and X (owned by Musk, formerly known as Twitter) in particular should go, in protecting free speech.
Musk enjoys the support of many on the Right as he creates X as a space where such freedom should be absolute. For those interested in total freedom from censorship (usually the concern is government censorship) this sounds like a great idea, and in a recent space on X, Musk was hosted by Jewish right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro. He and many of his exclusively Jewish and Israeli guests applauded this, even against the backdrop of the high-profile controversy around X and its approach to antisemitism and hate speech.
The war with Hamas is highlighting that unfettered free speech becomes a weapon in the hands of bad actors deploying their cyber troops. There are many paradigms that have been broken by the Hamas attack on Israel, and the right-wing defense of Musk and absolute free speech should be one of them.
Defending Elon Musk, absolute free speech: Paradigms shattered in wake of Hamas massacre
Immediately following the October 7 Hamas atrocities, social media was flooded by fake profiles promoting disinformation and explosive and incendiary antisemitic content.
Dan Brahmy, CEO and co-founder of social media intelligence start-up Cyabra tweeted within a day and a half of the Hamas attack that they had uncovered “over 70k fake profiles, controlled by the same murderous groups you are seeing on your TV screens to spread disinformation.”
NewsGuard is a rating system for news and information websites and following a week and a half since the war’s outbreak their research has shown that “Blue-Checked, ‘Verified’ Users on X Produce 74 Percent of the Platform’s Most Viral False or Unsubstantiated Claims Relating to the Israel-Hamas War.” Musk’s change of policy from verified to pay-to-play for the valued blue tick has directly driven this proliferation of fake-for-profit.
In an unusual move, European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton wrote to Musk three days into the conflict. “Following the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel, we have indications that your platform is being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU. I therefore invite you to urgently ensure that your systems are effective and report on the crisis measures taken to my team.”
Musk is not the neutral moderator allowing hateful content or disinformation to be moderated by other users, he is actually part of the problem.
In a stunning move, he actually recommended to his 160 million followers two notorious X accounts in order to be best informed about the conflict with Hamas. By the time he took it down his tweet had been viewed 11 million times. Researcher at Media Matters, Kaly Gogarty describes “His behavior on the platform – he sets the tone from the top – he’s saying it’s OK to spread conspiracy theories as he does it himself.” This is of course in addition to the well documented policy since his takeover of reducing to a minimum the resources within the platform for content moderation.
In a remarkable exchange on X itself between Breton and Musk, the X owner basically played dumb claiming “I still don’t know what they’re talking about.”
IN AN ARTICLE published on March 31 in The Jerusalem Report “Redefining freedom of speech: Protecting the right to the truth,” digital media expert Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler defined that: “The cornerstone of freedom of speech is based on the concept of shortage of information – that you need to ensure enough ideas get into the marketplace. But what happens when there is too much information? We are today experiencing the widest variety of ideas in the history of humanity. There is no mediation. Government censorship is minimal. Social networks have no responsibility for anything, so they hardly censor anything. So, suddenly we find ourselves in an era of a huge variety of ideas – but not achieving truth.”
Proving the point, BBC fact-checker Shayan Sardarizadeh tweeted on day two of the war: “I’ve been fact-checking on Twitter for years, and there’s always plenty of misinformation during major events. But the deluge of false posts in the last two days, many boosted via Twitter Blue, is something else. Neither fact-checkers nor Community Notes can keep up with this.” Ironic given the BBC’s immediate acceptance of the false Hamas narrative following the hospital explosion in Gaza.
In a conversation following the Hamas attacks, I discussed social media’s role with Shwartz Altshuler, who explained the key sources of disinformation.
Telegram is probably the worst offender with virtually no content moderation and heavy encryption that hinders external checks. Indeed, many of the gruesome videos taken by the Hamas terrorists during the attack were posted via the platform.
Chinese-owned TikTok has also been the subject of intense criticism and also received a letter from the European Union, specifically highlighting the special responsibility for protecting its huge user base of children and teenagers. The platform seemed to be the source of a conspiracy theory promoting the idea that the Hamas attack was aided by co-conspirators within the Israeli army. One particularly far-fetched theory, still circulating the net suggests that Netanyahu was party to the conspiracy. None of these theories have any credence.
Shwartz Altshuler noted that Israel does not have a fully coordinated or strategic policy with respect to social media and how the war with Hamas is being conducted in cyberspace. Specifically, Iran and Russia, infamous for their online capabilities, will try and sway public opinion and continue to use these platforms to try and divide Israeli society from within and affect global public opinion from without, as they do in other geo-political theatres. For Russia, stoking the pot in the Middle East helps to divide attention and drive it away from their war in Ukraine, not to mention that it assists their ally Iran.
Netanyahu was wrong to praise Elon Musk's stance on free speech
Only one month ago, Netanyahu praised Musk’s stance “in opposition to antisemitism.” This, of course, after having given him respect for his commitment to free speech.
In the last days, we have seen the strategic importance of winning the battle on social media and defeating disinformation following the explosion at the Gaza hospital. Giving Musk or any other owner of social media a free pass because of a commitment to absolute free speech ultimately empowers Musk and others to use their power to spread falsehoods and conspiracies that damage Israel, both internally and on the international stage.
Israelis know that there will be a great reckoning on multiple fronts after Hamas is defeated. Our alignment with right-wing free-speech absolutists must also be on the agenda.
The writer is a founding partner of Goldrock Capital and the founder of The Institute for Jewish and Zionist Research. He is a former chair of Gesher, World Bnei Akiva, and the Coalition for Haredi Employment.