The X social media platform has removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts and taken action to remove or label tens of thousands of pieces of content since the militant group’s attack on Israel. Its chief executive, Linda Officer Yaccarino, said in a Thursday letter to EU industry chief Thierry Breton that the company was preventing “illegal content and disinformation” relating to the ongoing Israel-Hamas crisis.
X – formerly known as Twitter – has seen a spike in daily active users in the Middle East following the bloody attack by Hamas on Israelis last weekend. The increased activity has raised concerns about the platform’s ability to moderate content and combat disinformation. The company let go of many in-house and contracted staff responsible for content moderation shortly after its owner, Elon Musk, took control.
On Thursday, a day after Breton’s 24-hour ultimatum to Musk to tackle the spread of disinformation on X, Yaccarino wrote that the platform was taking measures to prevent illegal content and halt the spread of false information. The company was working to “remove or label tens of thousands of pieces, including but not limited to violent speech and manipulated or out-of-context media, and is responding to more than 80 takedown requests in the EU,” she said.
The X CEO said the platform had assembled a leadership group immediately after the attack to assess the situation and reiterated its rules against violent or hateful entities and sensitive or graphic media. She added that Community Notes – user-generated fact checks – were being applied to posts in real-time and were visible on “thousands of posts, generating millions of impressions.”
A slew of mischaracterized videos went viral on X over the weekend, alarming experts who track the spread of misinformation and offering the latest example of social media platforms struggling to deal with a flood of falsehoods during a significant geopolitical event. Breton warned X that it could face fines if it did not comply with new EU online content rules, which came into force in August.
In the letter to Breton, Yaccarino said that X was also working with law enforcement agencies worldwide, including European Union Member States, to respond to requests to remove illegal content. She said the company reviewed all cases and would take prompt action as necessary, per European Union law.
The letter said X was “proportionately and effectively assessing and addressing identified fake and manipulated content during this constantly evolving and shifting crisis.” It added that the company had received no notices from Europol regarding any illegal content on the service.
Yaccarino said she could not attend the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference next week due to the global crisis unfolding. She told the conference organizers that with the “complex and changing nature of the conflict in the Middle East, she and her team must remain fully focused on X platform safety.” She also said the company would update WSJ readers about X’s actions to address the Israel-Hamas crisis.
