Category World News

In response to opinion polls that disprove US President Donald Trump’s claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is incredibly unpopular in his country, Elon Musk has pledged to “fix” X’s fact-checking tool.

Rowing in behind Trump’s attacks on Zelenskyy on Thursday, Musk claimed that his social media platform’s “community notes” feature was being “gamed” by governments and traditional media.

Musk made the claim while reposting an unidentified right-wing X account that cast doubt on the legitimacy of a Ukrainian polling organization’s relationship to the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

“If Zelensky was actually loved by the people of Ukraine, he would hold an election. He canceled the election because he knows he would lose in a landslide despite having control of ALL Ukrainian media, Musk said on X, while refuting the unsupported claim that US intelligence agencies only estimate Zelenskyy’s approval rate is 4 percent.

“In reality, he is despised by the people of Ukraine, which is why he has refused to hold an election”, Musk said, referring to Zelenskyy’s decision to suspend elections after declaring martial law in the wake of Moscow’s 2022 invasion.

Zelensky’s campaign is being challenged to hold an election and refute that. He will not”.

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who is one of Trump’s most powerful allies and heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), did not provide any evidence of X’s community notes system’s manipulation, which assigns explanations to posts that are contentious based on user consensus.

Musk also did not back up a claim that widely reported polling by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology was “Zelensky-controlled” and “not credible,” as he later claimed at the Conservative Political Action Conference waving a chainsaw in homage to Argentina’s cutting-edge president Javier Milei later on Thursday.

Lucas Graves, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who researches misinformation and disinformation, described Musk’s comments as “extremely concerning”.

According to Graves, “the accusations are a guideline for what we have to watch out for from the accuser – a world where private platforms like X can be systematically manipulated to favor the political interests and alliances of their owners,” as is frequently the case with this kind of rhetoric.

“A well-designed community notes system can be a useful check on misinformation. However, that requires transparent regulations that permit users to quickly access reliable information and that are unrestricted to individual preferences.

An inescapable feature of crowdsourced fact-checking models, according to John Wihbey, an associate professor of media innovation and technology at Northeastern University in Canada, is that the platform’s owner or management might not like the outcomes.

“That is part of the bargain you make when you implement&nbsp, these kinds of mechanisms”, Wihbey told Al Jazeera.

“Overall, I think community notes is a good approach, but it should be blended with other tools. Ironic that leadership is now blaming the fact that it isn’t working well because X is now relying on it too much.

The Ukrainian leader and the Trump administration have been at odds with one another over Washington’s efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine with a deal with Russia, with Musk’s broadside against Zelenskyy coming as they have been speaking out in broad strokes.

After the Ukrainian leader refuted his claims that Kyiv was to blame for the war and expressed concerns about being cut off from Washington’s negotiations with Moscow, Trump accused Zelenskyy of being a “dictator.”

Zelenskyy was also alleged to be “very low” in the polls in his country, refuting a previous claim that he only had a 4 percent approval rating.

57% of respondents to a poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology on Wednesday said they believed Zelenskyy, up 5 points from December.

The Ukrainian leader’s popularity, however, has waned as the war has gone on, dropping from 90 percent in March 2022 to 64 percent in February last year, according to the institute’s polling.

Since taking control of X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022, Musk has been heavily criticised for allowing, and in some cases promoting, misinformation on the platform.

Nearly three-quarters of a sample of false or misleading posts about the US elections of 2024 did not show accurate notes correcting the record, according to an analysis conducted by the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate.

“I think there’s a strong chance that X/Twitter becomes a propaganda arm for Musk/Trump – and, in fact, it’s already happening”, Gordon Pennycook, a professor of psychology at Cornell University who studies misinformation, told Al Jazeera.

Former federal prosecutor Kash Patel will become the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), continuing a trend of success for President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees.

But Thursday’s confirmation came by slim margins. Only 51 senators, all Republican, voted in favour of Patel in the 100-seat Senate.

Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both of whom were notable Republican Party defections. What critics have called the FBI’s nomination a dangerous nomination, they joined 47 Democrats in opposing it.

“  Mr Patel’s record demonstrates that he’s dangerous, inexperienced and dishonest”, Democratic Senator Dirk Durbin of Illinois said. He should not and cannot not be an effective FBI director.

For his part, in a social media post, Patel thanked Trump and said he was honoured to be confirmed.

The politicalization of our system of justice has eroded public trust, Patel wrote. “Let good cops be cops, rebuild trust in the FBI,” my director’s statement reads like a proverb.

But in the lead-up to the vote, a parade of Democratic lawmakers, including Durbin, took the Senate floor to warn against confirming Patel, saying he would indeed politicise the FBI.

Given previous assertions that suggested he might use the bureau’s resources to pursue Trump’s political rivals and journalists, they raised doubts about his ability to lead the FBI fairly.

Despite the enormous threat he poses to our national security, Durbin said, “It is shocking that my Republican colleagues are willing to support him.”

“I’m sorry to say, but I think they’ll quickly regret this choice,” he said. I can’t think of a better option than to give this man a 10-year lead in the world’s most renowned criminal investigative agency.

A narrow confirmation

The historically tight margins that Patel’s confirmation passed revealed those concerns. His FBI predecessors received overwhelmingly bipartisan support.

With 92 votes, Christopher Wray, an ex-director of the FBI, was confirmed in 2017. Before him, in 2013, James Comey notched 93 votes in support. And for Robert Mueller in 2001, the vote was unanimous, 98 to zero.

None of President Trump’s nominees are likely to fall short in a confirmation vote because of the Senate’s solid 53-member Republican majority.

Even Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has rebuffed his fellow Republicans’ support for Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., backed Patel on Thursday.

Collins and Murkowski explained in separate statements that they could not support Patel because they worried that he might use the FBI for political gain.

According to Murkowski, “Mr. Patel’s reservations stem from his own prior political activities and how they might affect his leadership.” The FBI must be relied upon as a federal agency that eradicates crime and corruption, not one focused on settling political disputes.

Collins echoed that sentiment, saying Patel’s “aggressive political activity” cast doubt on his ability to lead a nonpartisan bureau.

According to Collins, “Mr. Patel’s recent political profile undermines his ability to serve in the apolitical role of FBI director.”

Under Trump’s leadership, Patel has not been the first to cause division among Republicans.

During Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, Patel served in a variety of roles, including in the National Security Council and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

However, it was reported in news that Gina Haspel, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), threatened to step down due to the possibility that Trump would nominate Patel as her replacement.

Bill Barr, who was the attorney general in Trump’s first term, also recalled shooting down a proposal to make Patel the FBI deputy director, calling it “over my dead body.”

Facing Senate criticism

Patel defended himself from allegations that he would use the FBI to sway Trump’s approval during his confirmation hearings in January. If confirmed as FBI director, he also denied that he would engage in illegal behavior.

“I have no interest, no desire and will not, if confirmed, go backwards. As he was subjected to heated interrogation, Patel declared to Democratic senators that the FBI would not be politicized.

Patel also laid out his plans to spread more resources, including through the distribution of more resources among the 50 states, for the FBI’s law enforcement.

“A third of the workforce for the FBI works in Washington, DC”, Patel replied. “I am fully committed to having that workforce go out into the interior of the country where I live, west of the Mississippi, and work with sheriff’s departments and local officers”.

Patel, the son of Indian immigrants who immigrated from Uganda to Canada and later to the US, described the accusations against him as “false accusations and grotesque mischaracterizations.”

However, he has repeatedly been confronted by his own words, as evidenced by his numerous appearances on podcasts and books.

Patel, for instance, has spread the conspiracy theory that the FBI planned the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as a “false flag” operation to corner Trump supporters.

In a September interview on The Shawn Ryan Show, Patel also threatened to “shut down” the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, and turn it into a “museum for the deep state”.

And speaking to Trump ally Steve Bannon in 2023, Patel pledged to go after the president’s political rivals, which he described as “criminals” and “conspirators”. He also repeated false claims that Trump’s election defeat in 2020 against Joe Biden was fraudulent.

“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media”, Patel said. We’re going to go after the media figures who fabricated information about Americans who aided Joe Biden in the presidential election rig.

Patel has even penned a children’s book, The Plot Against the King, that depicted Trump as a monarch besieged by antagonists styled after Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, his Democratic rivals in the 2016 and 2024 presidential races, respectively.

Democrats have also criticized him for his involvement with the “J6 choir,” which is made up of federal agents detained following the Capitol bombing of 2021.

Democrats urge a ‘ no ‘ vote

Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California characterized Patel as using Trump as his “cash cow” as a tool to negotiate publishing deals and media appearances minutes before the Senate voted to confirm him.

Padilla also questioned Patel’s suitability for the position of FBI director, based on whether he had any prior experience with law enforcement or intelligence.

“Kash Patel has demonstrated a dangerous lack of judgement, lack of preparation and lack of independence”, Padilla said. Should he be chosen as the FBI’s leader, “he has demonstrated that he is either unwilling or unable to put politics aside to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution.”

Senator Adam Schiff, another California Democrat, echoed his colleague. He expressed concern that the FBI would be gutted under Patel’s leadership, as part of Trump’s slashes to the federal workforce.

“  In a democracy, law enforcement does not serve the president, let alone someone who fashions himself as a king. Law enforcement serves the people”, Schiff said.

The remains of some of the victims have been interred in Bukavu following weeks of fighting between armed groups, including the M23 Rebels. Because families couldn’t pick up their deceased, Red Cross organizations collected the remains for a mass burial.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the subject of Donald Trump’s tirade.