A false headline alleging an attack by Iran on Israel sent shockwaves across Elon Musk's X platform on April 4, 2024.
The headline claimed heavy missiles had struck Tel Aviv, triggering panic among users worldwide.
On April 1, Israel targeted a building within the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus, killing two generals and other officers of the Quds Force. Later, at a public funeral held for the slain commanders and officers, Iran declared its intention to retaliate against Israel for the attack.
But Iran did not specify the nature or timing of its planned retaliation, fueling concerns of escalating conflict.
On Thursday, a headline proclaiming "Iran Strikes Tel Aviv with Heavy Missiles" was prominently featured on X's main feed.
As reported by Mashable, investigations quickly revealed a disturbing truth about the headline: it was entirely false, was generated by X's own AI chatbot, Grok, and was subsequently promoted by the platform's trending news product, Explore.
A few years prior to Musk's acquisition of Twitter, the social media platform implemented a system where human editors provided written context for trending topics. However, following Musk's takeover in October 2022, the human editorial team was disbanded, leaving a void in the platform's ability to authenticate and contextualize news trends.
The recent rollout of X's updated Explore page aimed to reintroduce written context for trending topics, with Grok, the AI chatbot, tasked with generating official narratives and headlines.
Despite disclaimers acknowledging Grok's early stage and potential for errors, the AI-driven approach was rolled out, propagating false information to millions of users.
According to Mashable, the fake headline gained traction when verified accounts began spamming identical misinformation, accompanied by unverified videos of purported explosions.
X's algorithms identified this as a potential trending story, prompting Grok to generate an official-looking narrative and headline for the Explore page, further amplifying the misinformation.
In a move that raised eyebrows, X made Grok available to all premium-subscribed users just one day after the incident, effectively granting them access to an AI chatbot capable of generating misinformation.
In February, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that influencers on X were profiting from spreading misinformation about Middle East conflicts.
Since Musk's acquisition of X, the platform has reinstated thousands of previously banned accounts, banned others critical of Musk or X, and introduced a paid-for blue-tick system, criticized for amplifying conspiracy theories.
X has also launched an ad revenue-sharing program for verified users, often promoting false information.
To qualify for ad revenue sharing, users must meet criteria such as subscribing to X's $8 per month premium subscription and having at least 500 followers.
Last year, Musk said that posts flagged in Community Notes—a feature on X enabling users to refute claims and provide additional context—would be ineligible for revenue share.
However, Jack Brewster from NewsGuard, which operates a content rating system, told AFP that viral posts spreading misinformation often evade Community Notes flags.
NewsGuard examined 250 of the most popular posts in October endorsing prominent false or unsubstantiated narratives about the Israel-Hamas conflict. It discovered that only 32% of these posts had been flagged by a Community Note.
This article originally appeared on our sister site Computing.
