US lawmakers accuse Elon Musk of benefiting financially from anti-Israel propaganda on X

US lawmakers on Tuesday (Nov 21) wrote to billionaire Elon Musk highlighting concerns on how his social media platform X appeared to be benefiting from the premium accounts that glorified violence against Israel.

A group of 27 lawmakers wrote a letter to Musk and X chief executive Linda Yaccarino, expressing concerns citing reports from nonprofit organizations that showcased people with X Premium accounts "glorifying barbaric acts of violence against Israelis."

"These reports demonstrated that X is profiting from the spread of this gruesome and harmful propaganda through account subscription fees and ad revenue," the lawmakers wrote, adding that much of the offensive content remained live despite being flagged by researchers.

The lawmakers further said that X earned profit from the posts both from subscription fees as well as ads displayed in replies to both Premium and regular posts.

"X has financially benefited from the spread of demonstrably false and misleading content as well," the lawmakers wrote.

They also noted that since the US had designated Hamas as a terrorist organization in 1997, it was illegal to intentionally provide material support or resources to the group.

"There is no ambiguity about whether violent videos generated by the group qualify under these policies. These are videos that carry official Hamas branding and iconography," the lawmakers wrote.

X sues watchdog group Media Matters

X on Monday (Nov 20) sued nonprofit Media Matters accusing the organisation of defaming the platform after it published a report which said that ads for major brands appeared next to posts hailing Hitler and the Nazi party.

The platform, according to the lawsuit filed in the United States District Court in Texas, alleges that the media non-profit is driving advertisers away by portraying X as full of antisemitic content.

X claimed that the media non-profit “manipulated” the platform by “tricking the algorithm into thinking Media Matters wanted to view both hateful content and content from large advertisers.”

It also alleged that the media non-profit used accounts that exclusively followed accounts for major brands or users known to produce fringe content while also “endlessly scrolling and refreshing” the feed until it found ads next to extremist posts.

“Media Matters knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers' posts on X Corp.’s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content and then portrayed these manufactured images as if they were what typical X users experience,” said the company in its lawsuit.

(With inputs from agencies)