Twitter Blue: a license to peddle fakes?

Elon Musk’s monthly subscription blue check mark, available for $8 a month and already mired in controversy, is enabling independently confirmed peddlers of disinformation to spread fake and misleading content, a watchdog has claimed.

Musk has been accused of monetizing a vital function that confers an aura of legitimacy on a Twitter account – an aura that can now be purchased by bad actors who are anything but legitimate, according to NewsGuard.

The watchdog says it tracked what it described as 25 “misinformation superspreader accounts,” all of which enjoyed verified Twitter Blue status – despite their having previously been “assessed as having spread false information, or found to have spread a prominent false narrative included in NewsGuard’s proprietary Misinformation Fingerprints database.”

Each of the accounts it monitored had at least 50,000 followers and was already on NewsGuard’s database hit list, set up to “debunk false narratives.” During the most recent period of scrutiny between March 1 and 7, the accounts posted a total 141 tweets “containing false, misleading, and unsubstantiated claims.”

The tweets were viewed more than 27 million times, receiving more than three quarters of a million likes and reposts. NewsGuard added that most were published in English, though some also tweeted in French.

NewsGuard said the superspreader accounts it tracked also cumulatively retweeted 35 posts containing misinformation, bringing the total number of tweets and retweets identified by it as “advancing false, misleading, or unsubstantiated information” to 176.

Ten of the accounts tracked by the watchdog have been reinstated under Musk’s period of tenure since his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, after being suspended under the social media platform’s previous ownership.

False narratives: the usual suspects

In terms of the false content topics, many fell under ‘tried and tested’ categories for spreading discord and outright lies.

“COVID-related topics accounts baselessly claimed that the vaccines were dangerous or have caused mass death, AIDS, strokes, stillbirths, or other injuries,” said NewsGuard. “For example, far-right commentator Stew Peters falsely claimed in a March 2 tweet that men who had received mRNA COVID-19 vaccines ‘are essentially infertile and their penises are rotting off.’”

NewsGuard added: “There is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are causing any of the above injuries, and they have been proven to be safe and effective at preventing severe disease and death.”

US domestic politics also featured in the slew of disinformation, with right-wing commentator Rogan O’Handley using his Twitter Blue account to falsely claim that the 2020 US presidential election was “stolen from Donald Trump.”

The Russian-Ukrainian war also featured as a popular topic of disinformation, with 'verified' accounts used to peddle widely debunked claims that Ukraine was "overidden by Nazis."

Newsguard added the tweet also referenced conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza’s 2022 documentary 2000 Mules, saying it had “proved millions of illegal ballots were stuffed into drop boxes and yet not a single mule has been arrested. Ask yourself why.”

The watchdog added that “multiple experts” have said that 2000 Mules “uses a misleading interpretation of data to make its claims, and top election officials in all 50 states have affirmed the integrity of the 2020 election.”

The Russian-Ukrainian war also featured as a popular topic of disinformation, with ‘verified’ accounts used to peddle widely debunked claims that Ukraine was “overidden by Nazis, a narrative frequently advanced by pro-Russia media outlets.”

A March 2 tweet tracked by NewsGuard claimed: “Ukraine is a fake nation. It’s never been anything more than a petulant Nazi-infested cesspool region.”

Paying Musk for right to spread lies

With the billionaire recently declaring that tweets posting under Twitter Blue accounts will soon enjoy being boosted to the top of the pile, political extremists and other bad actors will effectively be able to access wider audiences of the gullible and disaffected for a paltry $8 a month.

“The platform has said that it soon will begin boosting Twitter Blue users to the top of Twitter’s search function,” said NewsGuard. “This means that those spreading false or unsubstantiated information on the platform can get priority if they pay $8 a month.”

For his part, Musk claims that the revamped verification system will weed out bots and trolls, in essence automated bad actors who spam genuine users and conduct disinformation campaigns of their own.

For his part, Musk claims that the revamped verification system will weed out bots and trolls, in essence automated bad actors who spam genuine users and conduct disinformation campaigns of their own.

“Users are eligible to receive a blue check mark only if they meet criteria including providing a phone number, have profiles that are active, and do not demonstrate deceptive behaviors, such as impersonation and platform manipulation and spam,” NewsGuard added.

And yet, its research suggests that already similar, or perhaps even the same, bad actors are using Musk’s new system to leverage false narratives, as dozens of tracked disinformation ‘warriors’ buy their way into a pole position on the popular social media platform to launch further campaigns.

NewsGuard reached out to Twitter’s press office, asking it to comment on its most recent findings. The response? The ubiquitous poop emoji that has now become the company’s standard reply to all journalistic queries.