Washington, DC – Today, Representatives Jamie Raskin (MD-08) and Dan Goldman (NY-10), along with 25 colleagues in the House of Representatives, wrote ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk and Chief Executive Officer Linda Yaccarino demanding X address failures in applying its anti-misinformation and anti-violence policies to Hamas terrorist propaganda.
Following the October 7 terrorist attacks against Israel, analysts have documented surging graphic violent content and misinformation on the platform, including Hamas’ terroristic propaganda videos. Much of this content violates X’s platform policies, which prohibit “engaging in or promoting violent acts,” and “recruiting, or providing or distributing services (such as media/propaganda) to further stated goals.”
“Several weeks ago, reports from multiple nonprofit research groups showed X Premium accounts spreading Hamas terrorist propaganda videos glorifying barbaric acts of violence against Israelis,” wrote the lawmakers. “Further, these reports demonstrated that X is profiting from the spread of this gruesome and harmful propaganda through account subscription fees and ad revenue.”
The lawmakers continued, “As of today, most of the terrorist propaganda posts flagged by [EU researchers] inexplicably remain live on your platform. Given the many flagrant examples of X profiting off this content, we need detailed answers from X in considering potential legislation that would prevent such activity in the future.”
Reps. Raskin and Goldman called on X to abide by its regulatory policies, particularly its ‘violent and hateful entities’ guidelines, and provide answers to the following questions about persistent misinformation and violent content on X.
The lawmakers wrote, “We also ask that you provide written responses to the following questions:
- Please explain how these violating posts and accounts were allowed to remain live for days after their policy violations had been publicized?
- What action does X plan to take about Hamas-related content currently on the platform?
- What changes does X intend to implement to ensure that the harmful spread of terrorist propaganda does not happen again?”
The letter is available here in full.
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