In the Spotlight
Frank Bergman
October 23, 2023
From Slay News
Twitter/X boss Elon Musk has responded to the New York Times pushing fake news on his platform about the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Last week, the NY Times published a report claiming that Israel had bombed a hospital in Gaza, killing hundreds of civilians.
The story quickly spread across social media and even ignited riots around the world.
However, the story was false and evidence later emerged proving that the hospital was hit by a missile that was misfired by Hamas terrorists.
The NYT attempted to stealth-edit the story to remove the debunked allegations but the damage was already done.
Earlier this year, the news outlet and Musk had a dispute over the verifications badge from a strictly financial standpoint.
Nevertheless, Musk let the Times have the golden badge regardless.
However, the fake claims about Israel’s role in the hospital explosion appear to be a step too far and X has now stripped the NTY of it’s coveted gold verification badge.
According to the Washington Post, X and Musk have not specified any reasoning behind taking away the golden badge.
As the Washington Post pointed out, the gold badge is meant to help distinguish corporate media outlets from other users.
All of that to say, it is believed that the New York Times lost its golden badge due to spreading false information.
Hamas’s misinformation, magnified by the New York Times, has aided in the rise of Middle Eastern tension, along with wildly misinformed individuals protesting against Israel when in reality they are clueless to the truth that Hamas is responsible for the atrocity, not Israel.
As reported by Breitbart, this is not the first mass misinformation that the New York Times has spread, and so they lost their gold badge.
Thankfully, Bret Stephens from the New York Times has since pointed out that information spread by institutions in Gaza should all be thoroughly checked.
He explained that they all are forced to answer to Hamas, and since there is no such thing as a “free press” under Hamas, claims like “Israel bombed the hospital,” should be “triple-checked.”
Hopefully, the Times will do its homework next time, and avoid flaring up division around the world.
