Following the news that Bronny James had been hospitalized after a cardiac arrest, Elon Musk took to X to promote an anti-vax conspiracy theory. “We cannot ascribe everything to the vaccine, but, by the same token, we cannot ascribe nothing. Myocarditis is a known side effect. The only question is whether it is rare or common,” Musk wrote in a xeet. The comments, which promote the unsubstantiated theory that the COVID-19 vaccine significantly causes the risk of myocarditis, were met with widespread outrage. According to the CDC, “Cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have rarely been observed following receipt of COVID-19 vaccines used in the United States.”
One of the responses to Musk's comments was the addition of a Community Note on his xeet. Community Notes are user-created, and peer-verified, comments intended to add additional context to xeets. The system was designed to help combat misinformation on the site. The Community Note on Musk's tweet read "Studies show that the risk of myocarditis is significantly higher after an actual Covid infection than with the vaccine. Among adolescent boys, the risk of myocarditis following a Covid infection was approximately twice that of the risk following the second vaccine dose." However, it appears that Musk has not taken kindly to the fact-checking.
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Community Note Removed From Musk Xeet
While the Community Note briefly appeared on Musk's xeet, it has since been removed. It's unclear what prompted its removal, given that it did not violate the criteria for a Community Note. The original note can be viewed on The Wayback Machine. Many people have taken the note's disappearance to mean that someone at X manually removed it from the tweet. While Community Notes can be removed through user voting, that is a rare occurrence. It is more likely that the note was directly removed by someone with access to X's back-end systems.
It's just the most recent example of Musk pushing his own worldview onto the site. In recent months, Musk denied that a mass shooter in Texas was a Neo-Nazi, despite the man having tattoos linked with Neo-Nazism. Furthermore, Musk attempted to pressure a vaccine expert into debating Joe Rogan. Additionally, Musk has heavily platformed anti-semitic anti-vax lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently announced a campaign to challenge Joe Biden in the 2024 primaries.
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