“The mainstream media has literally lied relentlessly. » “Traditional media is rapidly disappearing. » “The growth of propaganda in traditional media can be easily tracked by counting word frequency. » “The reality of this election was evident on 𝕏, while most mainstream media lied incessantly. » “The mainstream media propaganda machine has continued to promote hoaxes. » “Traditional media will continue to decline. »
As of the reporting date and since Donald Trump declared himself the winner of the US elections, Elon Musk has published a total of 41 posts on X about the media. These are attacks like the ones mentioned, sometimes several per day, in which the mogul constantly repeats a powerful idea: “You are the media now.” He repeated it more than a dozen times.
Once his candidate was placed in the White House, the mogul took the reins of his social network to launch a constant attack against the “traditional” press. In front of her is her social network. “Now you are the media. 𝕏 what you know. 𝕏 what you hear. 𝕏 what you see,” he posted this Saturday, attempting to use X as a verb like Twitter did with “tweet.” “Send X.com links to your friends so they know what what’s happening!” he asks insistently.
This strategy is not limited to the United States. This is a global action. “THE The Norwegian media lied to the people. They should register on X to know the truth”; “All this is happening because too many people in Germany believe in traditional media. They should use this platform”; “They want the mainstream media to continue to mislead the Australian people, just like they were about Donald Trump. »
All the examples cited date from the last three weeks, since the Republican is officially president-elect. However, Musk’s plan against the press began a few months after he took control of Twitter.
In addition to criticism and promotion of He also called public media such as RTVE “government-funded”, a label he had to withdraw a few days later.
An epidemic of media identity theft that does not stop
Musk’s period was also marked by scam campaigns that impersonated media outlets to spread scams. The tycoon allowed bots and fake accounts to pay to increase the visibility of trap links that claim to be verified headers, to copy his web pages to trick users into investing in cryptocurrencies or malicious links.
These publications promoted by elDiario.es reported the situation on November 8, 2023, citing David Broncano or Antonio Resines among those mainly concerned. Both denounced what was happening in a broadcast of La Resistencia.
More than a year later, the identity theft campaign is still active. Broncano himself continues to be one of the figures cybercriminals turn to most. In recent weeks, singer Melendi has joined him, with falsified publications reporting his alleged arrest.
As lawyer specializing in the digital environment Borja Adsuara explains, the EU has equipped itself with tools to sanction platforms for this type of practice. “Illegal content and the manipulation of information in general are part of the procedure we have opened against X under the Digital Services Act,” European Commission sources confirm to this media.
The community executive has started an official investigation against Musk’s platform this summer. This can result in a fine of up to 6% of the company’s overall turnover. The businessman has not made public how much money the latest accounts that Twitter presented as a listed company.
At the same time, Adsuara recommends that the media and those affected take these events to court. “Perhaps we have become obsessed with the administrative route, when it is a scam which can be the subject of criminal proceedings. They pretend to be companies and use people’s images without their permission,” he recalls. For the moment, Antonio Resines is the only one to have announced criminal actions.
The lawyer also points out that if Musk refuses to collaborate with justice, he could face action similar to that brought against Pavél Dúrov, arrested in France for having turned a deaf ear to the courts’ requests for information on Telegram.
Your own global speaker
As Musk attacks the media and allows fraudsters to use his platform to impersonate them, he has begun a maneuver to promote his own narrative on the public agenda. A study published by the University of Queensland highlighted that the tycoon introduced an algorithmic bias aimed at the visibility of his publications, which in recent months have focused on the campaign for Donald Trump and now on the media.
This resulted in a 138% increase in their posts and a 238% increase in their retweets. “Musk’s posts benefited from a marked increase in visibility, amplification, and user interaction, which exceeded general engagement trends observed on the platform,” the researchers report.
“All this confirmed the idea that the acquisition of Twitter was aimed at acquiring a communications tool. I wasn’t looking for a social media business model as we know it, based on personal data. “He bought Twitter like someone who buys a newspaper to manage his editorial line,” explains Marta G. Franco, journalist and author of The networks are ours (Consonni publishing house).
Musk spent $44 billion on Twitter, a social network. However, in recent weeks the company’s categorization has changed, so that it is classified by Android and iOS phones as an information platform. The tycoon proudly publishes how X is the most downloaded application in this category, competing with applications from the New York Times, the Washington Post or The Economist.
With his global newspaper, Musk was able to spread “misleading statements” about the US elections that were viewed 1.2 billion times on X, according to another newspaper report. Digital Hate Center. He has also opened political fronts against Brazil or the United Kingdom, while flattering India and its president, where he is negotiating the installation of a Tesla factory.
“From now on, they will use it for whatever suits them within the framework of government action and to promote the agendas most linked to their actions,” warns Franco: “Clearly, they have shown that they have no scrupulous about “that the tool serves what they want to tell.”
As for whether the possible departure of a large group of users to other platforms like Bluesky could affect X’s weight in the public sphere, the expert is skeptical. “Maybe it could lose a little influence, because it remains a niche site reserved for very convinced people. But they just won the elections. That’s a lot of very convinced people, they can make a lot of noise,” he concludes.
