Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are using their social media platforms to spread disinformation and promote far-right views, posing a challenge to European democracies.
European democracies are confronting a new online influence and disinformation threat — not from autocracies such as Russia, but emanating from the US. Elon Musk , the X owner and Donald Trump ally, is using his network to denigrate leaders he dislikes and promote far-right views and politicians. Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is meanwhile shifting to a Musk-style approach that prioritises “free speech” over independent fact-checking on his Facebook and Instagram platforms.
European leaders may fear that if they clash with these US billionaires in trying to safeguard their democracies, they could now face retribution from the White House itself. The power conferred by Musk’s immense wealth and social media reach has been amplified by his closeness to the US president-elect. The X boss seems intent on political rabble-rousing abroad. He has backed the far-right AfD party ahead of German elections and will on Thursday host a livestream with its chancellor candidate Alice Weidel. He has baselessly accused UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer of being “complicit in mass rapes” — referring to a decade-old scandal over child rape gangs — viciously smeared a female minister, and called to release a jailed hard-right activist. He asked his 211mn X followers whether the US should liberate the UK from its “tyrannical government”. Meta’s Zuckerberg is not, so far, using his platforms to promote his own or extremist views. But replacing independent fact-checking with X’s model of “community notes” — relying on users to flag misinformation — even just in the US raises questions about whether content will be properly policed elsewhere. It also appears a craven attempt to curry favour with Trump after past frictions. As well as aligning explicitly with Musk’s — and Trump’s — idea of “free expression”, the Meta boss said he would work with the incoming president to oppose “institutionalised censorship” of online platforms in Europ
SOCIAL MEDIA DISINFORMATION ELON MUSK MARK ZUCKERBERG EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY
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