After Hurricane Helene, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., shared on X the widely discredited claim that government scientists can control the weather. “It’s ridiculous that anyone would lie and say it won’t happen,” he wrote.
Conspiracy writer Alex Jones repeatedly wrote in X false claims about hurricanes Helene and Milton, including that the Pentagon had somehow created the hurricanes.
“Warning of Sedition,” Jones wrote in one. “America is the target,” he warned in another.
In just those three posts, Greene and Jones combined for 72,000 likes, and more than 34,000 shares. There are only a few of the many misleading diatribes and conspiracy theories that often appear in X.
Not so long ago, those two would not have been able to publish those posts through their accounts.
Greene and Jones are among a large group of users banned from the site for spreading false information, inciting violence or violating its rules – and were reinstated after Elon Musk bought the platform, then known as Twitter, two years ago.
Many of these people started where they left off, according to a New York Times analysis of 50,000 posts by more than 100 users who were reinstated. They include Laura Loomer, a right-wing activist who has campaigned with former President Donald Trump; Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow; and Rogan O’Handley, a right-wing political commentator. They all have a wide reach – at least 100,000 followers – and have been identified by researchers studying disinformation or extremism in X.
Most hold far-right or far-right views, and are part of a broader political revolution underway in X. Democrats have been losing ground, according to a recent academic survey, while Republican spending has remained steady. After publicly endorsing Trump for president in July, Musk used X as a bullhorn to promote the candidate, which many accounts of the reinstatement echoed.
The company did not disclose how many people were allowed to return. The accounts tracked by the Times — political candidates, media personalities, Trump and members of his inner circle — are likely to be positive and not representative of every single person reinstated. But they often promote conspiracy theories circulating in Musk’s social network.
Since his return, the accounts have spread false claims and narratives about immigration, race, natural disasters and rigged elections:
– More than half of the accounts tracked by the Times discussed unsubstantiated rumors that the assassination attempt on Trump in July was orchestrated by powerful Democrats. Combined, their posts were shared 3 million times in the 24 hours after the shooting.
– Since Helene appeared last month, 80 accounts have posted more than 500 times discussing claims that the government is controlling the weather, or that the Biden administration is withholding aid from hurricane victims. The post has been shared more than 1 million times.
– In the past month, posts from 51 accounts have been discussed by “illegal immigrants.” Claims that immigrants commit voter fraud, steal taxpayers’ money and are linked to possible terrorist programs have been shared or liked more than 2.7 million times.
The reach and potential impact of these accounts is a reflection of the policy established by Musk in his early days of ownership in 2022, when he announced an “amnesty” program for temporarily suspended accounts.
Musk plays a big role in that spread. He regularly responds to and shares claims made by users the Times follows, promoting their posts to his 200 million followers. Most users have seen their follower count explode since their return.
Musk and X did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the returned accounts.
Every day, almost a quarter of a billion people use X. The power of restored accounts to shape local discourse is great, and so are the risks, said Isabelle Frances-Wright of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a non-profit research organization. .
“UX has gone from being a social network to, quite frankly, an online opinion news network where most of the narrative and hateful content comes from a very small group of people that affects the entire platform in an extraordinary way,” says Frances-Wright.
In the second half of 2021, a few months before Musk made an unsolicited offer to buy Twitter, the social network suspended more than 1.3 million accounts for a list of abuses, including harassing users, posting hateful material and spreading false information about COVID. The company removed 70,000 accounts linked to the pro-Trump conspiracy group QAnon after the Jan. 6, 2021, on Capitol Hill.
When Musk took office in October the following year, he vowed to restore many of the users he believed were unfairly banned. He has long accused Twitter of criticizing dissent, describing himself as a “free speech person.” (He renamed the company X in 2023.)
A number of accounts tracked by the Times express left-leaning and liberal views. But the majority of users returned to the group tend to share right-leaning posts. Investigators found this month that conservative accounts posting about Trump ahead of the 2020 election shared more links to fake news and unreliable content than liberal accounts posting about President Joe Biden, and were four times more likely to be suspended.
Most of the accounts tracked by the Times returned in late 2022, although some returned in 2023 and this year. Trump posted only once in the first two years his account was back — his mug shot. But after a live audio stream on the site with Musk in August, the former president picked up his cadence. Now he regularly tweets, often criticizing his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Caroline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said Trump “will continue to use every platform to cut through the bias of the liberal media and bring his winning MAGA message to every voter in this country.”
UX still has rules that prohibit certain types of content. It includes hateful behavior (including the spread of offensive language or images), misleading and potentially harmful media (such as altered audio and fictional images) and abusive or harassing posts (such as unwanted sexual orientation or false denials of violent events).
Despite your policies, incendiary content is rampant on X.
There is a symbiotic relationship between Musk and the accounts tracked by the Times. Several rumors were raised against him – later denied by government officials – about the emergency response to Helene. About 90% of returned accounts examined by the Times tried to interact with the billionaire, often expressing their affection.
Musk often responds: He’s tagged other accounts that have been followed more than 160 times since bringing them back, effectively exposing them to his 200 million followers.
As the election nears, some top returning accounts have begun to question the results. Many of the comments are reminiscent of the conspiracy theories that circulated before the January 6 riots.
Since being accepted on the platform, about 80% of the accounts have discussed the idea of stolen elections, the majority making a specific distinction that Democrats have been involved in questionable voting systems. At least 1,800 posts on the subject, users have drawn more than 13 million likes, shares and other reactions.
Some prominent accounts have shared a misleading video that uses anecdotal evidence to claim widespread non-citizen voter registration. One of the posts received more than 750,000 views; Musk later distributed the video himself.
In late August, Trump said on X that Harris would destroy Social Security by allowing undocumented immigrants into the program.
Trump’s post garnered 9.4 million views. Many restored accounts repeat the claim almost verbatim.
This article originally appeared The New York Times.