X posts claiming European leaders took cocaine reach 135M views
50 posts with baseless drug claims about Starmer/Macron/Merz got 135M views, with no Community Notes.
Executive summary
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CCDH identified the 50 most-viewed X posts spreading baseless claims that European leaders Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, and Friedrich Merz used cocaine during a May 10, 2025 train meeting in Kyiv, using keyword searches of English-language posts from the following two days and verifying each through independent researcher review.
The 50 posts collectively reached 135 million views, with the single largest, from Alex Jones, exceeding 27 million views and a second post exceeding 19 million. None of the posts carried a Community Note within the three days following the event, despite the claims being demonstrably baseless and built around misinterpreted footage of everyday objects like tissues and coffee stirrers.
The report concludes that X's Community Notes system failed to intervene on a clear-cut case of viral political disinformation targeting sitting European leaders, reinforcing concerns about the system's reliability during fast-moving news events.
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