X promises 'highest level' response on posts about Israel-Hamas war. Misinformation still flourishes

abcnews.go.com:

The social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, says it is trying to take action on a flood of posts sharing graphic media, violent speech and hateful conduct about the latest war between Israel and Hamas

The social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, says it is trying to take action on a flood of posts sharing graphic media, violent speech and hateful conduct about the war between Israel and Hamas.

X says it’s treating the crisis with its highest level of response. But outside watchdog groups say misinformation about the war abounds on the platform that billionaire Elon Musk bought last year.

A post late Monday from X’s safety team said: “In the past couple of days, we’ve seen an increase in daily active users on @X in the conflict area, plus there have been more than 50 million posts globally focusing on the weekend’s attack on Israel by Hamas. As the events continue to unfold rapidly, a cross-company leadership group has assessed this moment as a crisis requiring the highest level of response.”

That includes continuing a policy frequently championed by Musk of letting users help rate what might be misinformation, which causes those posts to include a note of context but not disappear from the platform.

The struggle to identify reliable sources for news about the war was exacerbated over the weekend by Musk, who on Sunday posted the names of two accounts he said were “good” for “following the war in real-time.” Analyst Emerson Brooking of the Atlantic Council called one of those accounts “absolutely poisonous.” Journalists and X users also pointed out that both accounts had previously shared a fake AI-generated image of an explosion at the Pentagon, and that one of them had posted numerous