Analysis: X/Twitter apparently moved to the right on an identifiable date
Australian researchers claim to have identified the day on which X moved noticeably to the right. It was a turning point in the US election campaign.
(Image: kavi designs/Shutterstock.com)
The fact that X, formerly Twitter, has been drifting to the right since its takeover by Elon Musk in 2022 has already been researched. And it has been suspected for some time that the short messaging service's algorithm helps politically right-wing content and accounts gain more visibility. Two researchers from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia have now collected evidence for a research paper that supports this assumption. According to their explanations, the amplification of this content began on a very specific day – the day of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at an election event in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024.
(Image:Â Graham, Andrejevic)
Musk himself benefited the most
In their paper entitled "A computational analysis of potential algorithmic bias on platform X during the 2024 US election", the researchers write that there is evidence that there was a clearly recognizable change in user engagement in mid-July 2024. According to the researchers, this indicates that the algorithm may have been changed. At the time of the turnaround determined by them, Elon Musk tweeted following the attempted assassination that he fully supported "President Trump" and hoped for his speedy recovery.
In order to substantiate the thesis of an algorithmic bias in favor of conservative content, the researchers examined the engagement of prominent Republican-oriented accounts, including those of Libs of TikTok, Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro, in comparison to the performance of posts by Democratic-oriented prominent users, including politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. After Musk's endorsement of Trump, the visibility of Republican-oriented accounts increased significantly compared to Democratic-oriented accounts, possibly boosted by the platform's recommendation mechanism, the so-called "For You" feed.
However, according to the researchers, user engagement with Musk's own posts has increased the most since July 13. They see this as a further possible indication that the algorithm had been tweaked accordingly.
Further evidence
The researchers' work is not the first collection of evidence to support this assumption. The Wall Street Journal, for example, found in October that the X algorithm presents new users with political content, whether they want it or not. According to the report, Trump-friendly content appeared significantly more frequently in the timelines of the new accounts set up for the purpose of the investigation than content supporting the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris.
(kst)
