There was a time when Twitter (now called X) appeared to be an enormous power for democracy. The Arab Spring revolution of 2011 was written and organised on the social media platform (and others) because it was out of the control of governments.

At the time, technology was predicted to be a liberator of the oppressed because it could amplify the voice of the people and totally inverted the information pyramid of mass media that had favoured the likes of Rupert Murdoch and other mainstream media, which was losing public trust.

The promise of sites like X, Facebook and Instagram has now faded. X is now viewed by many as a site of disinformation and hate. Facebook draws flak over its data harvesting, scams and misinformation and Instagram has been criticised for its role manipulating young minds. Sites like 4Chan are just wild rantings of the unhinged.

Does it matter? Of course. Even if you don’t visit these sites they are influencing daily life as they take control of the media landscape. The power and reach of these sites is enormous.

Rather than a liberator of the oppressed, X was a player in the January 6 riots in the US as well as the more recent race riots in the UK which were fanned by disinformation. X was also used by Iran’s ambassador to Australia when he called for “wiping out the Zionist plague’’ from Palestine’s holy lands.

An American organisation, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, did a count and found that false and misleading claims made on the X site by Musk, who has 194 million followers on the platform, had been viewed 1.2 billion times.

It found there were 50 instances this year alone where Musk had made claims that were wrong. One related to the riots in England where Musk retweeted a claim that those arrested would be sent to detainment camps on Falkland Islands. Musk later deleted it.

He also posted a deep fake video of presidential candidate Kamala Harris in which she stated she was the ultimate diversity hire and a deep state puppet. It was later changed to show that it was a parody.

He also claimed that the UK was heading towards an inevitable civil war, which seems a fairly big step away from the current reality and a pretty bold statement for someone with his reach to make.

Politically-motivated bots have infected the site. The ABC reported that in the run up to the UK elections just 45 accounts produced around 440,000 posts that generated over 3 billion impressions. When the election was over those accounts moved on to post about anti-migrant protests and the US — to amplify racism and generate disinformation and conspiracy theories through 170,000 posts with 1.3 billion impressions, according to Global Witness.

No doubt they will do the same in Australian elections.

They do it because they can monetise it and because X allows them. Musk is a free speech absolutist and draws criticism for only supporting the free speech he agrees with, which is a claim that is often raised against other media organisations in Australia.

He also recently brought legal action against advertisers who he claimed were boycotting  X by not advertising on the site, which appears to run counter to his free speech beliefs. He also launched an action against the Center for Countering Digital Hate for the impact it has on its advertiser. It was thrown out.

Musk, who bought Twitter for $US44 billion, has even changed the site’s algorithm so that it promotes his own tweets to the top of the page, according to US media reports.

He reportedly did so after a tweet from US President Joe Biden during the Super Bowl did better than one of his own. Not by a bit, but by 29 million impressions to 9 million. A shellacking.

Musk is a creation of the internet. He made his wealth through Zip2 and then Paypal. He is now branched out to Tesla, X, SolarCity, SpaceX and The Boring Company that have broken convention in their own way.

No doubt there are advancements within those companies that have been for the good of humanity, but the cost of Musk’s eccentricities does add up.

Even Tesla has felt the wrath from consumers. The New York Times reported that consumers who want to buy electric vehicles were often repelled by Musk’s political beliefs and wealth.

The concentration of media in Australia, the US and elsewhere should have left a big role for the likes of X, but it has really become less responsible, less responsive and more extreme than the mainstream.

The answer to Musk is new and more media outlets that provide balanced coverage. Despite new and more accessible ways of getting information the most popular news websites in Australia largely mirror the traditional mainstream, which carry the same bias.

Sites like In Queensland and The New Daily, provide an important and more balanced news.

There are others like Crikey, John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations, The Saturday Paper and Capital Brief that all serve different but important markets. You should give them a go.