The Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nominee has been falsely accused of sexually molesting students. The claims have been spread by a former deputy sheriff from Florida, now openly working in Moscow for Russia’s propaganda apparatus, on dozens of social media platforms and fake news outlets.
A faked video purporting to show one victim — creating fake people is a recurring Russian tactic — received more than 5 million views on X, a platform owned by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. Mr. Musk has not only leaned all in for the Republican nominee, former President Donald J. Trump, but he also used his platform to reanimate discredited claims about the validity of the election’s outcome.
Smears, lies and dirty tricks — what we call disinformation today — have long been a feature of American presidential election campaigns. Two weeks before this year’s vote, however, the torrent of half-truths, lies and fabrications, both foreign and homegrown, has exceeded anything that came before, according to officials and researchers who document disinformation.
The effect on the outcome on Nov. 5 remains to be seen, but it has already debased what passes for political debate about the two major party candidates, Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It has also corroded the foundations of the country’s democracy, undermining what was once a shared confidence that the country’s elections, regardless of who won, have been free and fair….
Meta’s stance signaled a desire to step back from America’s fractious political debate, though the company says it continues to moderate false election content. Mr. Musk has by contrast used X to thrust himself square into the middle of it.
He dismantled the platform’s teams that flagged false or hateful content and welcomed back scores of users who had been banned for violating company rules.
He has raised millions of dollars for Mr. Trump’s bid and campaigned for him in appearances in Pennsylvania. In posts to his 200 million followers — more than Mr. Trump had in his heyday on the platform — he has also repeated unsubstantiated claims that the Democrats are recruiting ineligible immigrants to register to vote.
Last week, he echoed the refuted assertion that Dominion Voting Systems rigged the count in 2020, a falsehood that resulted in a $787.5 million settlement paid by Fox News.
Mr. Musk also, according to a recent study, played an outsize role in amplifying content promoted by Tenet Media, a news outlet that the Justice Department accused last month of covertly using $10 million in laundered funds from Russia to pay right-wing media personalities like Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Dave Rubin.
It is not clear whether Mr. Musk knew of the Russian links — the influencers claimed they did not. He certainly engaged regularly with Tenet Media’s content, though, and Tenet regularly tagged him, presumably to draw his attention, according to the study, published by Reset Tech, a nonprofit research and policy organization based in London.
At least 70 times from September 2023 to September 2024, he responded to or shared accounts linked to Tenet and its influencers to his followers on X — many of them relating to this year’s election, the study found…