US Heads Into Post-Truth Election as Platforms Shun Arbiter Role
- Burned by Covid controversies, social media giants step back
- Meanwhile AI offers new possibilities to spread misinformation
Supporters of Donald Trump clash with others over social media during the Beverly Hills Freedom Rally, in 2023.
Photographer: David McNew/Getty Images
Voters in this year’s US election risk having to wade through more misinformation than ever, with social media giants increasingly reluctant to weed out false content even as artificial intelligence tools make it easier to create.
Elon Musk’s transformation of Twitter into the more free-for-all X is the most dramatic case, but other platforms are also changing their approach to monitoring. Meta Platforms Inc. has sought to downplay news and political content on Facebook, Instagram and its new Threads app. Google’s YouTube has decided that purging falsehoods about the 2020 election restricts too much political speech (Meta has a similar policy).