Elon Musk’s X said it had suspended 800 million accounts over a 12-month period as it fights the “massive” scale of attempts to manipulate the platform.
The social media company told MPs it continually fought state-backed attempts to hijack the agenda on its network, with Russia being the most prolific state actor, followed by Iran and China.
As part of the battle against such content, X suspended 800 million accounts in 2024 for violating its rules on platform manipulation and spam, although it did not reveal which of those suspensions were related to foreign interference. X has approximately 300 million monthly users worldwide.
Wifredo Fernandez, government affairs executive at the platform’s parent company, X Corp, said: “Efforts are made every day to create networks of inauthentic accounts.”
Speaking to MPs on the foreign affairs committee via video link on Monday, Fernandez said attempts to manipulate the platform or flood it with spam had not abated and that “several hundred million accounts” had also been closed in the latter part of last year. Fernández added that he was “pretty sure” that the remaining accounts on X were authentic.
X defines manipulative accounts as those that engage in “massive, aggressive or disruptive activities that deceive others and/or alter their experience.” It refers to spam as “repeated, unsolicited actions” that affect other accounts, which often means a stream of low-quality content.
Fernández said Russia sought to undermine the 2024 US presidential election and “stoke division,” with a large number of accounts attempting to “flood the area” with a “particular type of narrative.”
X has been criticized for its focus on content moderation since it was acquired by Musk, the world’s richest person, in 2022, when it was known as Twitter. In the United Kingdom, for example, it helped spread inflammatory speculation following the Southport stabbings, in which Axel Rudakubana murdered three children.
Spam accounts have been a particular problem for Musk, who used his concerns about the authenticity of accounts on the platform as one of the main reasons for trying to back out of the 2022 acquisition. The Tesla CEO eventually agreed to buy the platform amid warnings from experts that he could not abandon the acquisition without legal consequences.
