PHASE 1: Plenty of slanted news on X but not that many completely fabricated stories. PHASE 2: X monetization and LLMs lead to a big uptick in fabricated stories, quotes, photos, and videos—Community Notes provides a counterforce but with lag time. PHASE 3 (today): The majority of sensationalistic posts are now fabricated, Grok discredits them instantly—but posts still get millions of views and fool millions of people, hurting the marketplace of ideas, hurting X’s reputation, embarrassing people who share X posts with their friends, all while padding the scammers’ pockets. PHASE 4 (I hope): The algorithm is updated to penalize instead of reward scammers—posters who regularly scam X’s users with fabricated stories stop appearing on the For You page, crushing their reach. Grok currently calls these accounts “satire” but there’s nothing satirical about a fake headline or deepfake video presented as if it’s completely real. It’s a scam and fuck these people.