The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), a tech industry coalition, is raising concerns about the presence of content from the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Elon Musk’s platform, X (formerly Twitter).
The Sunday Times reports that GIFCT members are particularly worried about how X’s involvement and status on the organization’s board could impact its credibility. GIFCT’s members include major tech entities like Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube.
Recent assessments by the Community Security Trust (CST), a group combatting extremism and antisemitism, indicate that X has become the most accessible platform for finding Hamas-related videos. CST researchers were able to locate propaganda from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—all proscribed as terrorist organizations by the UK government—within just 10 minutes of searching on X.
The situation has drawn sharp criticism in the GIFCT’s 2023 independent advisory committee report, which expresses heightened concern over the decline in online trust and safety measures on certain platforms, notably impacting the moderation of extremist content.
Further complicating matters, The Sunday Times notes that Elon Musk’s policies since acquiring X have included reactivating accounts of banned extremists, monetizing verification marks, and significantly reducing the platform’s content moderation team. These changes align with Musk’s stated aim to transform X into a bastion of “free speech,” but they have also sparked intense debate over the platform’s role in regulating harmful or extremist content.
When it formed in 2017, the U.S. and European governments pressured GIFCT to counteract online extremism. Now, according to The Sunday Times, X is reportedly falling short in its financial commitments to the coalition, highlighting ongoing challenges within the forum regarding X’s participation and contribution.
