If true, that is a major scandal and threat to democracy. Algorithms must be made public and subject to fairness rules. - ThreadSky

rahmstorf.bsky.social • 104 days ago

If true, that is a major scandal and threat to democracy. Algorithms must be made public and subject to fairness rules.

1/ X's algorithm was changed in mid-July 2024 to systematically boost Republican-leaning accounts and Elon Musk's own account following his endorsement of Donald Trump, according to a newly released computational study of engagement from the Queensland University of Technology.⬇️

Comments

saikilogy.bsky.social•104 days ago

The same thing was done by all the social media platforms during 2020 elections. Meta even banned, restricted and disabled actions of the Rightist people who engaged in healthy arguments because the bots supporting Leftist reported their comments as cyber bullying. 👇

workplacesols.bsky.social•104 days ago

By what sensible definition or political criteria is Joe Biden ‘a leftist’, whatever that might mean. Useful as a term of abuse but objectively meaningless.

A decent centrist, I would have voted for him in preference to Trump (I would have voted for a tree rather than Trump) but leftist he ain’t.

saikilogy.bsky.social•104 days ago

The amount of filth the 2020 election had the average people have no idea. Every Social Media platform manipulates algorithms, nobody will accept that. Threads is doing that now, "hello and hi" getting 500k views. Don't create narratives to support specific schools of thought, it's all business.

dunkelgruenulm.bsky.social•103 days ago

Es war ein Putsch wie in Afrika. Nur die Waffen waren anders.

felinecannon.bsky.social•104 days ago

Our fairness rules date back 90 years and our joke of a supreme court pretends they only apply to media present at that time. Broadcast TV and Radio.

And even there they are gamed to benefit liars, propagandists, billionaires.

But yes. it is a threat to democracy.

felinecannon.bsky.social•104 days ago

This was obvious to people on Twitter at the time. Biden’s tweets had ridiculously low view counts.

btpepper.bsky.social•103 days ago

I remember Biden's congratulations to the Super Bowl winner got more engagement than Musk's. That's when all hell broke loose.

thetoad101.bsky.social•103 days ago

Had never really thought about it like that. Musk is an awful person but it was really quite a smart move to work around the system like that.

felinecannon.bsky.social•103 days ago

Peter Thiel purportedly nudged Musk into the purchase. His company and that if Robert Mercer were behind some of the social media manipulation vis a vis Brexit and Trump 1.0. Utilizing data and algorithms to push bias and disinformation. But it’s more straightforward when you own the company.

thetoad101.bsky.social•103 days ago

Makes sense. Obviously I understand how social sway works but it never fails to shock me how quickly a group can get behind what seem like baffling ideologies to me.

felinecannon.bsky.social•103 days ago

It is fascinating. Even without people trying to influence the conversation, self-sorting and user-amplification seem to have strong divisive effects. And you see people flip and get enraged in real time. Can’t pretend to understand it.

thetoad101.bsky.social•103 days ago

I think in late twitter (X) there were so many bots and many probably hadn’t realised that, as Musk had convinced them he’d purged them all.

If you are human and just see swathes of others (potentially bots) vaguely agreeing with your worldview, surely the pure weight of numbers impacts belief.

jackwallington.com•104 days ago

My followers on Twitter were going up by 1,000 a month consistently. Then Musk took over and shortly after my followers halted and engagement plummeted. The data is in Google Analytics. Same story across most writers / scientists now on BlueSky.