Elon Musk’s X platform, previously known as Twitter, is now seeking job applicants to stop disinformation and promote “credible” stories about the election, despite the Tesla CEO saying he had planned to make the social media platform more friendly to free speech.
Twitter/X is looking for job applicants to fill two positions tasked with protecting “information integrity” and “civic conversations” on the social media platform, according to a report by Just the News.
Elon Musk’s X logo for Twitter (Anadolu Agency/Getty)
The applicants must be “passionate about protecting users from global disinformation,” as well as “combating threats to online conversational health,” and “helping people find credible information online” regarding elections.
Qualified applicants must also “have a deep understanding of geopolitical, disinformation, and cybersecurity trends,” with fluency in Russian, Mandarin or Cantonese preferred, the report added.
Critics quickly flagged the jobs as “censorship positions,” and social media users pointed out the accounts team leader Aaron Rodericks follows on rival platform BlueSky, which former State Department cyber official Mike Benz referred to as “every high-level spook & censorship industry heavyweight in the world.”
The accounts Rodericks is following reportedly include leaders of anti-disinformation groups that worked closely with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
In February, social media analyst Kristen Ruby noted that the Musk-owned platform still had its recently renamed civic integrity misleading information policy.
This authorizes Twitter/X to remove, stifle, and label “content that may suppress participation,” as well as “mislead” about civic processes, cause “confusion,” or contain “satirical or humorous elements.”
In the Twitter Files, Rodericks was shown to be a skeptic of the U.S. government’s reports of disinformation and foreign influence, and claimed, internally, that the State Department’s Global Engagement Center “doubled their budget by aggressively overstating threats.”
In response to an inquiry by Just the News about how he squared his skepticism of GEC claims with the duties he’s hiring for, Rodericks said, “Be skeptical of all claims until proven with evidence.”
“GEC had terrible methodology for their social media research,” he added. “As a govt org they have a greater responsibility to be accurate when making claims.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.