A new study by NewsGuard, an organization that evaluates the trustworthiness of news sites, has raised concerns about the role of verified users on X (formerly Twitter) in the spread of misinformation regarding the Israel-Hamas war. The study analyzed the 250 most-engaged posts on X between October 7th and October 14th that promoted false or unverified information related to the conflict. Shockingly, it found that 74 percent of this misinformation was attributed to verified X accounts.

The study highlighted ten false or unsubstantiated narratives about the war, including claims that CNN had staged footage of its news crew under attack in Israel and videos purporting to show Israeli or Palestinian children in cages. These 250 posts collectively received 1,349,979 engagements, including likes, reposts, replies, and bookmarks, and were viewed over 100 million times worldwide. Of these top 250 posts, 186 were shared by verified blue-checkmarked X accounts.

NewsGuard criticized X for distributing blue-check verifications to users for a monthly fee, which used to be a reliable means of identifying celebrities, politicians, and journalists before Elon Musk‘s ownership of Twitter. According to NewsGuard, the blue checkmarks not only provide an appearance of credibility but also receive algorithmic boosts from the platform, though the exact mechanisms remain undisclosed. NewsGuard’s analysis suggests that this boost plays a significant role in content going viral. Twitter initiated the removal of blue checkmarks from legacy verified accounts that didn’t subscribe to premium services in April.

Elon Musk has recently championed X as a platform for “citizen journalists” and endorsed its Community Notes feature for enhancing information accuracy. However, NewsGuard’s study revealed that only 79 out of the 250 posts were flagged for misinformation using X’s Community Notes, indicating a failure to address or identify misinformation in nearly 70 percent of cases. This aligns with a report by NBC News from October 10th, which detailed the challenges faced by community fact-checkers in keeping up with the surge of misinformation following the Hamas attack on Israel.

The misinformation problem is not exclusive to X, as NewsGuard also identified false or unsubstantiated information about the Israel-Hamas conflict on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Telegram, and more. The study’s focus on X was due to its public reduction in moderation efforts. Additionally, NewsGuard found that misinformation about the conflict often first went viral on X before spreading to other platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

These concerns have caught the attention of global regulators, with the European Union launching an investigation into X to ensure compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA) in light of allegations of the spread of illegal content and disinformation. Similar investigations have been initiated into Meta and TikTok by the EU.