In Elon Musk's "election integrity" community on X, false claims proliferate

Musk spreads false theories about voter fraud

Elon Musk spreads debunked conspiracy theories about voter fraud 04:52

Elon Musk's political action committee has created a group on his platform X that has become a repository for election misinformation, galvanizing more than 58,000 members to report instances of "voter fraud or irregularities" that are often unsubstantiated, misleading or flat-out fabricated.

The "Election Integrity Community," which launched in late October, has hundreds of new posts each day, many of which contain misleading or false claims, CBS News found. Misinformation experts are concerned that mobilizing people to gather unverified claims of election fraud is fueling the spread of false narratives that undermine trust in election security.

Musk has become a prominent voice in the 2024 election with his outspoken public and financial support of former President Donald Trump, and he frequently uses his X account to amplify election misinformation. A CBS News investigation found that half of Musk's posts on election security this year contained false or misleading claims. 

Many of the claims originate elsewhere on X and are reposted onto the community page. Some of the posts falsely claimed that voting machines are "flipping votes" from Trump to Harris. Other posts reshared a fabricated video that officials say was likely created by a Russian troll farm. Another recirculated a debunked claim that Michigan voters were casting multiple ballots. 

Max Read, a senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said the X community could serve as a "one stop shop" for users looking to amplify election fraud claims. 

"The X community is sort of a consolidation point of a lot of different false, unverified claims about the election process," Read said. 

Some users in the community have attempted to dox individuals they falsely accuse of election fraud. In one instance, users tried to identify a postal worker dropping off ballots at an election office who they falsely claimed was illegally "harvesting" votes. A county executive told NBC News the postal worker was being harassed as a result of the video.

Musk's X community echoes the "Stop the Steal" efforts on Facebook during the 2020 election, where Trump supporters spread false claims and organized protests that culminated in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The X group is part of a broader effort "built on years of the Big Lie from 2020 and 2021," said Nora Benavidez, a civil rights attorney at Free Press helping to monitor social media platforms' preparedness to handle election misinformation. 

"Efforts to intimidate voters or make them feel like there could be violence is really a way to already plant the seeds that a Trump loss is illegitimate," Benavidez said.

Since Musk took over X, formerly Twitter, in October 2022, he has reinstated accounts previously suspended for violating the platform's policies and fired the department responsible for content moderation, opting instead for a crowdsourced method that often fails to quickly debunk false claims. 

"He has a ton of power over the platform and over a platform that has a lot of users," 

said Steven Rathje, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University who has studied changes on X since Musk's takeover. "He's changing the information diet we experience on a daily basis." 

In:
• Misinformation
• Elon Musk
• 2024 Elections
• Twitter