Elon Musk (L) and Peter Navarro.
Credit: Reuters Photos
Elon Musk has criticised the mainstream media, and advocated for X (formerly known as Twitter) being a source of fact-checked information.
On Sunday, he said "people decide the narrative" on the platform which allows all perspectives to be considered through the Grok and Community Notes features.
The claims were a response to a statement White House trade adviser Peter Navarro made a few hours prior that X is "letting propaganda into people’s posts", in response to a community note that "fact-checked" his accusations made on Friday, of India buying Russian oil to focus only on profits.
Navarro had posted on the platform, "FACTS: India highest tariffs costs U.S. jobs. India buys Russian oil purely to profit/Revenues feed Russia war machine. Ukrainians/Russians die. U.S. taxpayers shell out more. India can't handle truth/spins."
In a few hours, the Community Notes feature of X, appeared under the post with the title, "Readers added context they thought people might want to know." Soon after, it publicly fact-checked his claims, coming up with the following as a response, "India’s Russian oil purchases are for energy security, not just profit, & don’t violate sanctions."
It further explained, "While India has some tariffs, the U.S. has a trade surplus with it in services. U.S. also continues to import certain commodities from Russia which is hypocritical."
Navarro called the move out in his response to the notes added by X users. ''Wow. @elonmusk is letting propaganda into people's posts. That crap note below is just that. Crap. India buys Russia oil solely to profiteer," the adviser said.
He also added, "It didn't buy any before Russia invaded Ukraine. Indian govt spin machine moving high tilt. Stop killing Ukranians. Stop taking American jobs."
Prior to his defence, Musk replied to a post stating how the mainstream media has lost its credibility, and criticised them for "ignoring major stories". He also wrote, "As recent events have shown all too clearly, you can’t trust the legacy (fka mainstream) news at all."
"On this platform, the people decide the narrative," he said in another post. "Community Notes corrects everyone, no exceptions. Notes data & code is public source. Grok provides further fact-checking," he said further on X being a fact-driven platform.