Elon Musk's Twitter is in the Tank for Trump
Every election there is a lot of talk of election interference. Whether it is from Russia, China, Iran, or other foreign adversaries, or billionaires in the United States using their sway in distasteful ways. One oft discussed dynamic in the later category is tech oligarchs and when and how they are using their influence to serve American voters messaging in an election cycle. Google, Facebook, and others have often been accused of putting their thumb on the scale. Well now it seems Elon Musk’s X is very clearly putting their thumb on the scale for Donald Trump via their algorithm.
Twitter, X, is Full of Awful Reactionary Content Now
It doesn’t take very much time on the platform to realize X is pushing pro-Trump posts in the algorithm. The site is overrun with shitposters who might be real people, who might be bots, but are more than willing to argue in favor of Trump somewhat nonsensically on basically any political post that garners any amount of attention. Elon Musk himself is broadcasting incredibly vicious anti-immigrant and anti-trans narratives, endorsing Donald Trump, and in general pushing an essentially alt-right worldview, all after prioritizing his own posts 1000x on the platform. His posts are impossible to escape.
The platform is still very much a major player in the news and media space. Public figures make announcements on the platform and news outlets break news. Users still take part in a massive public square with millions of users and some very influential people. However in the background of that experience is a cesspool of far right nonsense that is easier to avoid in the “following” tab (users you curate and follow only) but otherwise is ever present pushing an incredibly reactionary narrative.
Elon Musk is often posting 100+ times a day. Some posts feed into his “Tony Stark future man” brand he has cultivated directed towards the worst Tesla fanboys on X. Some posts remark on AI or other topics in a similar vein. The vast majority however target immigrants and feed right wing narratives. Allegations of immigrants attacking his mother, the right wing Venezuelan Colorado apartment heist hoax, and dozens of posts claiming Democrats want undocumented immigrants (Elon says “illegals”) to vote in the 2024 election in various ways. He has also posted inflammatory lies about trans people and has posted dozens of times regarding the judge behind the X ban in Brazil.
Elon Musk Controlling Twitter is Not Freedom of Speech
Elon Musk bought Twitter, gutted it, made the platform significantly worse and now is using it to broadcast his personal opinion and try and sway an election. Simply put, that shouldn’t be allowed. Elon Musk has equated his ownership and posts on X with free speech broadly. It makes absolutely no sense to consider Elon Musk’s ability to manipulate one of the largest public forums the world has ever seen simply because he owns it a “free speech” right. That is corporate control and manipulation at the hands of an incredibly terrible billionaire. Drowning out everyone who doesn’t espouse Elon’s reactionary views is however a significant free speech issue.
Manipulation of social media is an issue every election cycle but nothing is ever done. Conservatives decry Mark Zuckerberg for alleged manipulation, liberals cite Russian interference, basically any actor with any influence has been accused of interference over the last decade. Now that Elon Musk owns Twitter the manipulation is clear, but nobody seems to care.