Elon Musk, entrepreneur and CEO of various influential tech companies, has recently claimed that comprehensive audits conducted on his latest social media venture, referred to here as “X,” formerly known as Twitter, demonstrate a noteworthy reduction in antisemitic content when compared to other prominent social media apps.
What is antisemitism? Antisemitism is prejudice against or hatred of Jews. It encompasses hostility, discrimination, and negative stereotypes targeting individuals of Jewish descent. Examples include conspiracy theories, discriminatory policies, and violence based on Jewish identity.
Criticizing Israel, like any other country, is not inherently antisemitic, but unjustly singling out Jews or employing double standards can be. Antisemitism has persisted throughout history, notably culminating in the Holocaust during World War II, where the Nazis systematically murdered six million Jews.
Musk breaks silence on antisemitism audits
On Monday at a conference on combating antisemitism, X owner Elon Musk stated that audits X has commissioned indicate that the social media company X platform contains less antisemitic content than other applications.
Before addressing the conference in the southern Polish city of Krakow, where he discussed the increase in antisemitism since the Israel-Hamas conflict began in October, Musk had earlier in the day paid a visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau, the site of a former Nazi German concentration camp.
Musk’s agreement with an X user who advocated an antisemitic conspiracy theory in late December of last year has prompted several major advertisers to halt spending on the platform or to abandon it entirely in recent months.
Musk declared on Monday that the social media platform’s overarching bias remained free speech-related and that propagated fallacies must be rectified. During an on-stage interview with Ben Shapiro, a conservative journalist from the United States Musk said that:
The outside audits that we have had done … show that there is the least amount of antisemitism on X, if you look at all the other social apps.
Elon Musk
Details of the audit
Musk did not disclose who performed the audit or provide any information from the report. He did not answer questions from other journalists.
It’s never going to be zero if you’ve got 600 million people on the platform, expecting it to be zero is pretty unlikely [..] the least amount of antisemitism” compared to other major platforms, although he cited no evidence for that claim beyond referencing “outside audits that we’ve had done.
Elon Musk
The Krakow event, hosted by the European Jewish Association (EJA), focused on the “disconcerting surge of anti-Semitism in Europe” after the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in October.
Musk reiterated his support for the Israeli people on Monday, describing himself as “aspirationally Jewish” and stating that hatred of Jews must be tackled. As part of Monday’s occasion, the billionaire appears to have visited Auschwitz with his young son.
Despite concerns over an increase in antisemitic content on X, Musk said that he was “naive” about the current growth in antisemitism in the United States since the commencement of the Israel-Hamas conflict. “I must admit to being somewhat frankly naive. In the circles that I move, I see almost no antisemitism,” he said.
When asked about balancing free speech and combating hate speech, Musk stated that the platform values free speech.
I think at end of the day free speech wins, in that if somebody says something that is false, especially on our platform, you can then reply to it with a correction […] So if somebody tries to push a falsehood, like Holocaust denial, they can immediately be corrected. And you can’t get rid of the tag.
Elon Musk
Musk also encouraged other international leaders to write on the platform, referring to previous problematic tweets as “mistakes.” However, he believes that more than 169 million people follow him on X because “I really try to say things that I think are interesting or funny,” though “once in a while I’ll do something dumb.”
“It’s only me doing these posts. I don’t have a team or anything,” he admitted. “Every once in a while, you make a mistake. You can’t win them all. Nobody bats 1,000.”
