US election: How X users could be earning thousands from misinformation and AI images | BBC News

[0:00]Let's go back to the US presidential election. With less than a week to go, what impact could social media have on the race? Mariana Spring has been taking a look. The social media site X is a hub for conversation about the US election. But some of the posts are fake and misleading. I've been investigating networks of accounts on X. Some of the stuff they share is true, some of it isn't. Some of it is AI generated, some of it's just political posts. And I've tracked down one person who's a part of one of these networks and who has agreed to meet with me. I've never met him in real life. Um I've come to Florida. Um so let's ring on his front door and see what he has to say. He's called Freedom Uncut online. He says he's an independent, but would rather Donald Trump become president. He says he spends up to 16 hours a day on X, sharing AI generated pictures like these and streaming. While some of these posts are obviously satirical, others are less fantastical. It's the more provocative content that gets views he tells me. It's kind of interesting because the the balance between free speech and saying stuff that you know is either untrue or you just say it in a very brash way to egg people on, uh, is is an interesting era that we're in. Recent changes at X allow eligible users to make money based on views and likes more easily than before. Oh, I know people that are making the the pay periods every two weeks, and I know people that are in the thousand plus range. I've messaged dozens of profiles in these networks. Some support Donald Trump, others Kamala Harris. Some have been racking up millions of views and confirm they're making anything from several hundreds to thousands of dollars. Misleading and false claims on X from other users have included this doctored image of Kamala Harris working at McDonald's and false or unsubstantiated claims about election fraud. Democrat, Brown-eyed Susan has shared unfounded conspiracy theories that the July assassination attempt on Donald Trump was staged and AI generated images of him too. She posts these along with her political views because she wants Kamala Harris to win the election. The only reason I make anything right now is because Musk assigned me that blue check. I didn't ask for it. I can't hide it and I can't return it. So I clicked on monetize. I asked X about whether its site is incentivizing users to post like this. It didn't respond to me or request to interview its owner, Elon Musk. This matters because misleading posts from X seem to be spilling out onto other social media sites with more users and could affect voters. Mariana Spring, BBC News, Florida. China has oh, let's just tell you about the website first, um, because there is a live page giving you all the very latest on the stories emerging from the US election. And uh, one of those is about the row over President Biden's comment in which he apparently called supporters of Donald Trump garbage, and that is making a few headlines as well. He says he was referring to hateful rhetoric used against Puerto Ricans. There's a live page there being updated by the minute. Please do take a look.