The “community note” flagging one of Elon Musk’s tweets as incorrect has quietly disappeared from the billionaire’s social media platform.
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Elon Musk has a few hobbies, such as his fascination with Mars and spouting nonsense online. Since he can’t go to the Red Planet (yet), he is currently focused on the latter to get Donald Trump elected.
That was once again on display Thursday.
It all began with a social media post from Sofia Patel, an operative of the British Labour Party, who noted that 100 past and present members of her party’s staff were headed to the US to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris.
That post was flagged by MAGA influencer Ian Miles Cheong, who asked whether this amounted to “election interference” and what people would say if members of the Russian State Duma did the same thing.
That reply insinuates that those Russians would campaign on behalf of Trump, which seems like a safe assumption.
Of course, there is a big difference between the democratically elected lawmakers of an ally and the cronies of the authoritarian leader of an adversary.
But never mind that.
It should be noted that this controversy is not about whether it is wise for the members of a British party to campaign on behalf of an American candidate. In fact, that seems a bit foolish in such a tight race, especially if the other candidate is a vindictive narcissist.
Instead, the issue is whether this is, in fact, “election interference” or lawful campaigning.
Musk certainly seemed to have made up his mind.
“This is illegal,” he stated with the confidence of a guy who doesn’t usually hear the word “no”… regardless of how dumb the stuff is that he says.
Not surprisingly, Musk is wrong.
It is not illegal for foreign nationals to volunteer their time on behalf of a candidate, as long as that activity is not being done in coordination with a campaign.
And even when it is — for example, when right-wing UK politician Nigel Farage spoke at a Trump rally in 2020 — the Federal Election Commission (FEC) does not seem to be overly bothered by it.
(For a laugh, here is what Farage, the leader of Reform UK, had to say about Patel’s initial post: https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1847213823188459919)
In any case, while X’s “Community Notes” fact-checking service usually does not flag Musk’s misinformation, it did in this case.
Not long after the billionaire published his incorrect tweet (which has been seen by 47 million people), a note appeared at the bottom of the post linking to the FEC guideline and explaining that he was wrong.
So far so good.
Sure, it’s not great that the owner of a large social media platform loves to spread misinformation, but neither is that half the country supports a mentally ill fascist.
What is a real problem, however, is that the community note has mysteriously disappeared since then… even though the tweet is still as incorrect now as it was previously.
In terms of election interference, it is much more worrisome that the supporter of one of the candidates controls an entire platform like X and can obstruct its ability to flag misinformation, than that a few British volunteers knock on doors in Wisconsin.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often funny analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
