X/Twitter Verified Blue Check-Mark Users Are ‘Superspreaders’ of Disinformation About Israel-Hamas War, Study Says

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor On X — the social network formerly called Twitter — about 74% of the most-viral posts promoting misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war in the first week of the conflict were shared by verified blue check-mark accounts, according to a new study. For the first seven days following Hamas’ deadly terrorist attack on Israeli civilians (Oct.

7-14), NewsGuard, a company that maintains a system rating the credibility of news and information websites, analyzed the 250 most-engaged posts on X/Twitter that promoted 10 “prominent false or unsubstantiated narratives” relating to the conflict. According to the NewsGuard analysis, 186 of the 250 posts (74%) were posted by accounts verified by X.

Collectively, the posts in the analysis advancing false or unsubstantiated information received about 1.35 million engagements and were cumulatively viewed more than 100 million times in the one-week period, according to NewsGuard. Under Elon Musk’s revamped blue check-mark verification program, users of X Premium (which costs $8 per month) are able to get verified status, which under Twitter’s previous regime was intended to signal authentic and reliable accounts.

Currently, posts from X Premium users are prioritized by the platform’s algorithm so they appear more prominently in users’ feeds. “That decision turned out to be a boon for bad actors sharing misinformation about the Israel-Hamas War,” NewsGuard said in its study.

“For less than the cost of a movie ticket, they have gained the added credibility associated with the once-prestigious blue checkmark and enabling them to reach a larger audience on the platform.” The 10 false or unsubstantiated claims identified by NewsGuard shared by X verified accounts included the following: the falsehood that Ukraine sold weapons to Hamas; a video purporting to show Hamas fighters celebrating the abduction of an Israeli toddler; a bogus claim that CNN staged footage of a news crew under attack in Israel; and the conspiracy theory that Hamas terrorist attack was a “false flag” carried out by Israel and/or Western nations. Per NewsGuard’s analysis, far-right activist Laura Loomer, a former Project Veritas