Over two dozen House Democrats signed an open letter on Tuesday to Elon Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino saying that their social media platform has become a “hotbed of misinformation and terrorist propaganda,” and the platform has been profiting off of related videos from Hamas since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israeli civilians.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) penned the open letter, published Tuesday and signed by another 25 Democratic colleagues, including Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).
The letter, readable here, expressed their collective “grave concern surrounding X’s ongoing failure to abide by its own policies governing the promotion of misinformation and hateful, violent and terroristic propaganda videos, which shockingly have been used by the company for profit.” It additionally pointed to a “troubling pattern of increased antisemitism on the platform since Mr. Musk’s purchase” one year ago, which has hit a peak since Hamas’ attack last month.
“Now, in the days following Hamas’ horrific Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, we’ve seen an inexcusable situation become outright indefensible,” the members wrote.
The letter came on the heels of fallout and heightened scrutiny around Musk and his social media platform’s promotion of antisemitic content. X sued liberal watchdog Media Matters for America on Monday, accusing the organization of misleading reports regarding the platform’s placement of advertisements on harmful content. Musk has repeatedly accused the media of negatively covering X and scaring ad dollars away.
Tuesday open letter further claimed that X is amplifying terrorist propaganda on the platform, while profiting from it, “both through monthly subscription fees collected from some propaganda spreaders, and through ads displayed in replies to posts by both Premium and regular accounts. “
“In addition to profiting off violent content by a terrorist organization, X has financially benefited from the spread of demonstrably false and misleading content as well,” the letter read.
The House Democrats pointed out that X is even failing to follow their own content moderation policies, looking instead to “willfully permit and benefit from the illegal spread of terrorist propaganda.”
The letter demanded that X enforce its policies more thoroughly. It also requested X to provide “all forms of written communications, including email, text messages, other messaging services, or X direct messages, relating to content moderation for any posts or accounts associated with, related to, or connected to Hamas,” by no later than Dec. 1.
“X not only has an obligation to abide by its own content moderation policies, but it has a public duty to ensure that violent images and propaganda from a terrorist organization are not spread on its platform,” the letter concluded.
