Elon Musk’s X is the “go-to platform for antisemitic posters,” in line with a brand new year-long study shared completely with NCS.
The analysis, by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, discovered that not solely is antisemitism rampant on the platform, but additionally that the crowdsourced group notes are failing to successfully average posts — with simply over 1% of the most-viewed antisemitic posts the group studied getting a group observe fact-check.
Accounts with many followers that put up antisemitic content material, whom the study dub as antisemitic influencers, are additionally gaining traction on X and reaching thousands and thousands, the analysis discovered. Some of the preferred antisemitic influencers recognized by the study paid for verification badges on X and are permitted to promote subscriptions to their accounts on X, that means they will revenue from hate.
“The truth is that antisemitism has been present on X long before it was rebranded (from Twitter). It always had a problem with it,” CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed informed NCS in an interview. “But to see it being tolerated, monetized and amplified so openly is still shocking.”
With the assistance of OpenAI’s GPT-4o mannequin, the study recognized over 679,000 posts containing antisemitic remarks between February 1, 2024, and January 31, 2025. (Researchers personally checked 5,000 of the posts and mentioned the GPT-4o mannequin had a excessive accuracy price.) The analysis discovered that 59% of these posts espoused conspiracy theories about Jews, reminiscent of that Jewish folks management governments, that Jews are satanic in nature, or that the Holocaust by no means occurred or misrepresentations of what occurred through the Holocaust. The different 41% of the posts spouted antisemitic abuse, reminiscent of dehumanization of Jewish folks or assaults on their character.
X’s insurance policies prohibit attacking “other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease” on the platform. It additionally prohibits “inciting behavior,” supposed to “degrade or reinforce” stereotypes, together with dehumanizing a gaggle of individuals or utilizing slurs. X additionally explicitly prohibits the denial of mass casualty occasions such because the Holocaust.
If a put up violates these insurance policies, X says it’s going to prohibit the attain of such content material, and typically require accounts to take away the content material earlier than they will put up once more, or delete the content material by itself.
At the identical time, Musk has allowed conspiracy theorists and antisemitic posters again on the platform on free speech grounds. For instance, white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes’ account was reinstated final 12 months after being suspended in 2023.
“It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness,” Musk posted on X after Fuentes’ account was reinstated.
The new year-long study discovered that X’s content material restrictions are usually not having a lot impact on antisemitic content material. The greater than 679,000 antisemitic posts recognized have been seen 193 million occasions in whole, the study mentioned.
X didn’t reply to NCS’s request for remark.
In January 2024, after coming beneath hearth for reposting an antisemitic conspiracy principle on X, Musk visited Nazi focus camps in Europe. During an look there alongside right-wing podcaster Ben Shapiro, he mentioned that X at all times favors “free speech” and that if “somebody says something that is false,” customers can reply with a correction.
Musk sang the praises of the platform’s group notes function. Community notes are user-generated context labels; if sufficient verified customers vote {that a} context observe is worthwhile, it’s going to seem beneath a put up.
“We’ve put maximum resources and attention behind community notes, so if somebody tries to push a falsehood like Holocaust denial or something like that, they can immediately be corrected. And you can’t get rid of the tag, it’s like stuck on you,” Musk mentioned on the time.
But the brand new study discovered that group notes are failing miserably. The notes appeared on simply over 1% of the most-viewed antisemitic posts, the study recognized, together with simply two of the most-viewed Holocaust denial posts. Community notes have been posted so late that they appeared for a mean of simply 22% of a put up’s viewership.
The study discovered X took or compelled the poster to take motion on solely 36 of the 300 most-viewed antisemitic posts, reminiscent of limiting their attain or eradicating the put up.
“The system is not functioning at the speed or level required to address the reach of antisemitic content,” the study mentioned.
Ten “antisemitism influencers” accounted for 32% of all of the posts recognized as antisemitic within the study. One of the accounts has 2 million followers, whereas others have a whole lot of hundreds.
Six of the ten influencers have been “verified” on the time of the study, that means they pay for X Premium, get a blue checkmark and get their posts boosted by the platform to be seen by extra customers.
Three of the ten additionally had the flexibility to cost for subscriptions, that means followers might pay for unique content material. (One of the three influencers misplaced his subscription capabilities towards the top of the study’s interval in December 2024.)
In an interview, Ahmed, the CEO of the CCDH, identified that when Musk purchased Twitter in October 2022, he wrote in an open letter that he didn’t need the platform to turn into a “free-for-all-hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences.”
“I’m afraid that for Jews, he’s done precisely that … He’s turned X into a hellscape fantasy, and that’s just his own words,” Ahmed mentioned.
X sued the CCDH in 2023 over its analysis, accusing the group of violating the corporate’s phrases of service when it studied after which wrote about hate speech on the platform following Musk’s takeover. X mentioned it suffered tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in damages from CCDH’s publications. But a federal judge threw out the lawsuit in March 2024, excoriating the platform’s case as plainly punitive quite than about defending the platform’s safety and authorized rights.
“X didn’t sue us for defamation. They sued us for the act of doing research,” Ahmed mentioned. “People don’t sue you for the act of doing research unless there’s something they don’t want you to find.”