It is eye-opening to learn about the threats and implications of individual owners of social media platforms becoming politically involved in different countries’ elections, policies, and legislation. The owner of X (formerly Twitter) has increasingly been using his social media platform to express his views on a wide variety of subjects. Elon Musk has pulled himself into disputes over politics, war and peace, and global security.
Aside from Brazil, Musk has engaged in various political scuffles with Australia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Germany, and Türkiye, as well as the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. We can see that one man, the world’s richest person, is attempting to affect political moments across the globe using one of the most influential social media platforms. With 196 million followers, the owner of X is promoting divisiveness, conspiracy theories, and deepfakes.
We live in a digital media-dominated era. While modern communication technologies increase access to information, it has also become challenging for people to verify and trust it. The global expansion of social media platforms has transformed them into a significant force in shaping global communication, culture, and international affairs.
Platforms like Facebook, X, and Instagram allow individuals in many parts of the world to connect in real-time. These platforms, based on algorithms designed to capture attention and amplify divisive content, are fuelling political and social polarisation and intolerance and causing an information crisis. It is becoming harder to distinguish between disinformation, lies, information manipulation, and deepfakes. Social media sites, notably X, are becoming fertile ground for contentious content.
Deepfake is the phenomenon of the creation of realistic digital products with manipulated pictures, videos, and sounds, and we see it spreading like fire. Deepfake videos can cause significant harm to individuals by exploiting and altering their likenesses to convey explicit or damaging information. Some of the possibilities can raise an eyebrow about privacy, ethics, and copyright.
In many ways, this article was inspired by a thorough look at tweets on X, including some posted by Elon Musk that contain a provocative approach. While artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving, there is no turning back, but some of the abuses already committed in the digital space are concerning.
Social platform X had several artificial intelligence-generated pieces of content with fake images of United States President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former president Donald Trump. Elon Musk has posted a deepfake video of Kamala Harris with detrimentally manipulated audio. The X built-in chatbot Grok allows users to create photorealistic images with little limitations, allowing for and producing misleading depictions of real people.
The complexities of deepfakes lead us to evaluate the importance of information validity. Studies point out that most attention has focused on how deepfakes could threaten political discourse, while relatively little attention has been given to how deepfakes might impact the financial system. Geotechnopolitics is already a reality with cyberattacks and mass disinformation, besides new attempts to rewrite the financial market narrative.
Experts in artificial intelligence are appealing for comprehensive regulations as it is used to amplify disinformation and manipulate public opinion.
Individuals with greater influence online should be held to higher standards of decency. As a major social media influencer who can steer his more than 196 million followers at an idea just by posting it, it matters. Scoring political points by posting divisive content, and deepfakes and having over 100 million views on his original posts as well as thousands of retweets requires that the platform’s owner exercise social responsibility in his online behaviour.
Most importantly, the case highlights the growing influence of sole actors and big tech companies in international affairs. The increasing private involvement in public governance demonstrates individual players interfering at the population level, with ramifications for social and political life.
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