Fake News! The Top 100 Community Noted Twitter Accounts

I went through the whole list of Deplorables

When Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $44 Billion, he claimed that he did it because it was politically biased towards the Left and he wanted to make it politically neutral, and he was a "free speech absolutist" and felt that too many accounts had been permanently suspended for posting disinformation and false material, claiming that the fact-checkers were usually wrong.

As many of the largest advertisers fled in droves as the content moderation team was fired, the CEO and most top executives replaced, and thousands of the worst offenders and racists were reinstated to the platform, Musk offered up his solution - Community Notes. From that point forward, a team of volunteers from across the political spectrum would fact-check posts and attach the truth to false posts with citations. 

While the people who work on attaching these Community Notes are diligent and thorough, there are some very disturbing and disheartening trends that have emerged. Perhaps the worst is that nobody is suspended for their sheer volume of fake or deceptive posts. There are no limits on the number of times you can get Community Noted before a suspension results. Musk doesn't care that the same people post false information day after day, claiming that the Notes correct the issue and no other actions needs to be taken.

However, the problem is that most of these accounts are some of the largest on Twitter, and by the time they get noted they have already had millions of views and been retweeted by thousands of others. Also, their fake pics, doctored videos, and misrepresentations are often taken and reposted by others as their own (content theft is common), and these new posters typically don't get Noted. So the lies spread and spread largely unchecked.

Twitter does post a list of the accounts who are the worst offenders in ranking order. When you go through the list, some clear trends begin to emerge. The first this is that if Musk would simply suspend, even temporarily, some of these worst offenders, a big chunk of the disinformation on the site would go away. The Top 100 worst accounts alone accounted for a combined 12,388 Community Noted posts with hundreds of millions of views. 

Before I get to the Top 10, I wanted to note some other trends with the Worst 100. Many of the accounts are foreign, and most of those are from Asia. Many of them were permanently banned under the old regime but were reinstated by Musk. Many are not political - they just post fake stuff for clicks and focus on pop culture, the entertainment industry, or post false information about the weather, science, the environment, etc..

49 of the Top 100 worst offending accounts are overtly political. 48 of the 49 most Community Noted political accounts are right-wing. Only one - 'Blade of the Sun' is from the Left. Ironically, many of these accounts complain in their bios that they are "anti-fake news" or "anti-woke" while posting one lie and fake video after another. 6 of the accounts have been permanently suspended, but for reasons other than posting false info. Most of the accounts have well over 100K followers and many over 1 million. Elon Musk follows many of them and has retweeted them often - including the Community Noted posts. Elon Musk himself checks in at #55 of the list of worst offenders with 89 posts getting Community Noted. 

Another big problem is that Musk has actually created an incentive structure to post fake things. Sensationalized claims get amplified by his algorithm and lots of clicks. There is financial incentive to continue to do it. You don't face any suspensions and false posts tend to draw more engagement than true ones. 40 of the Worst 100 are monetized subscription accounts - so Musk is actually paying them to post fake things. (Musk claims that impressions on posts that get Community Notes aren't included in his payout structure, but there is no way to verify that and those accounts post many other false and misleading things without ever drawing a Note).

Before I get to the Top 10 Worst Offenders, first let's take a look at some of the notables on the list who fell outside the Top 10:

#15 - Laura Loomer. The self-described independent journalist and congressional candidate, Loomer was permanently suspended for years. Controversy erupted recently when Marge Greene complained about Loomer flying on Trump's plane to his debate with Harris. Trump has reposted Loomer's tweets on Truth Social a staggering 101 times.

#16 - Matt Wallace - monetized right-wing click baiter with a massive bot following posts fake stuff on an almost daily basis. Some of his post are so fantastical it is amazing that anyone would believe them, but he has been reposted by some big accounts.

#17 - Mario Narfal - another one of Musk's favorite accounts with a big following, Nawfal is more focused on clicks than ideology, although he seems to lean to the right of the spectrum. He has become a popular host of Musk's newish 'Twitter Spaces' and has a somewhat checkered past when it comes to business dealings.

#20 - Stew Peters - a proud white nationalist, Stew has a large following among the groyper set. He has few friends in the business because very few right-wingers are Nazi enough for Stew. He can't stand people like Marge Greene because he considered them posers, but one of the few people he seems to like and respect is Loomer.

#21, #25, #37, #59 - are all Russian government, media or affiliated accounts.

#31 - Wall Street Silver - another one of Musk's favorite "anti-woke" accounts.

#58 - New York Post - the only major American media company to make the Top 100.

#71 - Jack Posobiec - right-wing provocateur and friend of Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon, Poso's scams are well-known going back to PizzaGate and several other high-profile hoaxes he created. Unlike many others on this list, while Jack likes the clicks he's mostly about accomplishing ideological objectives with his lies. One of his favorite moves is to claim to have "sources" inside the camps of Democrats and make wild claims based on them that never come true. Another Musk favorite. 

#81 - Benny Johnson - carnival barker and all around lightweight huckster, Benny's rep for fake news, stolen content, and tweet-theft was well-known for years before he was recently outed for taking money from Putin to push his propaganda.

#82 - Marge Greene - Jewish Space Lasers. That's all the introduction I need.

#86 - End Wokeness - probably one of the Top 5 accounts retweeted by Musk, many people believe this is Jack Posobiec's anonymous alter-ego account.

#96 - Rishi Sunak - former UK PM and leader of Conservative Party, Sunak is the most prominent politician to make the list.

Now for the Top 10. The very worst offenders on Twitter of peddling lies, deception, disinformation, fake and doctored videos. Here is a screen shot of their Twitter bios with their rank and the number of Community Noted posts in parenthesis: 

#10 - Laughing Man (227)

#9 - Dom Lucre (263)

#8 - Ian Miles Cheong (266)

#7 - Daily Loud (279)

#6 - Silvano Trotta Officiel (291)

#5 - Kirinjisinken (338)

#4 - Jackson Hinkle (342)

#3 - Choquei (370)

#2 - Illuninatibot (370)

#1 - Concerned Citizen (817)