Despite Elon Musk’s claims of ‘absolute free speech’, the platform states that content supporting Hamas violates company policies.
X said it is removing accounts affiliated with the Hamas terror group, in an effort to curb the spread of “terrorist content” online.
The platform has a policy against “Violent and Hateful Entities Policy,” according to which the company is taking steps to remove accounts that support Hamas or are sharing graphic media related to the invasion. The company also said it is monitoring the platform for antisemitic speech and is working with other platforms to prevent it from spreading through different networks.
“In this rapidly evolving situation, we continue to work with our members to identify and follow trends in content and activity online related to terrorist and violent extremist actors involved in the offline violence,” the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. “This includes the possibility that a range of terrorist and violent extremist networks and groups may seek to exploit the conflict for their own purposes, as we have seen in past events.”
These steps come in response to a wave of posts about the invasion from users in and around Israel, including many which have labeled either footage from the invasion or videos of the Israeli airstrikes against Gaza as “out of context.”
X owner Elon Musk has previously claimed to be a “free speech absolutist,” and dramatically reduced the content moderation team. This has led to widespread criticism regarding the spread of allegedly false claims on the platform, bringing X a warning from the European Union that it had 24 hours to take action against the spread of misinformation on X.
Source: Arutz 7
