New research has found that since Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump on 13 July, posts that favour Republicans have received an algorithmic boost on X, formerly known as Twitter. Experts warn the move sets a dangerous precedent and could fall foul of Section 230 protections.
Billionaires backing US presidential candidates is nothing new. News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch is famous for picking a horse, usually a conservative, and using his media empire to try and influence the result.
Murdoch has consistently done this for the LNP in Australia, and Conservative Party in the UK with the notable exception of Labour’s Tony Blair.
As Murdoch looks to hand over the baton to one of his children, most likely Lachlan, there is a social media baron whose political influence is rapidly growing: Elon Musk.
New research conducted by Queensland University of Technology associate professor Timothy Graham and Monash University professor Mark Andrejevic have found that since Musk endorsed Donald Trump on 13 July, engagement with Musk’s X account has seen a substantial rise, with view counts up by 138 per cent, retweets up by 238 per cent, and likes up by 186 per cent.
The research also found that other conservative and right-wing X accounts, including right-wing commentators Jack Posobiec, Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr, have performed better in terms of visibility of posts compared to progressive and left-wing accounts such as US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, US Senator Bernie Sanders and Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Check out the full study: A computational analysis of potential algorithmic bias on platform X during the 2024 US election
The Australian study reinforces a belief that Musk is using his platform to actively promote Trump at the expense of Harris.
A previous report in the Washington Post found that posts supporting Trump go viral, while those that are negative to Trump or sympathetic towards Harris do not spread far and wide on Musk’s platform.
Michael Davis, a research fellow at the UTS Centre for Media Transition, said that Musk’s position could have wide reaching ramifications for social media platforms more broadly and how they are regulated.
“Since Musk took over twitter then turned it into X, I think that’s it’s becoming more and more obvious that they’re not a neutral carrier,” he told B&T.
”It kind of puts into question the historical stance of social media platforms that they’re just mutual carriers of user content information, which is supported through laws such as Section 230 the Communications Decency Act and so on.
“The active moderation that you see here, the active promotion of one side of politics over the other, puts into question the idea that social media companies are not responsible and liable for the content they carry.”
‘Musk could polluting political discourse in Australia’
Davis said the global reach of social media platforms will only exacerbate concerns that political narratives that start in the US could export to Australia.
“I think there’s a danger that what starts in one country is endemic to that discourse and could be transferred here or elsewhere,” he added.
“If Musk chooses to take an active role in Australian politics, I think that would be detrimental to the functioning of our public sphere here…that is dangerous and certainly pollutes our political discourse.”
Marian-Andrei Rizoiu, an associate professor leading the Behavioural Data Science lab at the UTS told B&T that it is unclear if the boost to pro-Trump posts is due to Twitter/X tweaking its algorithm or the X community becoming more right-wing leaning since Musk took over the business.
He said that if it is the case X is prioritising pro-Trump content at the expense of Harris, then they would be “walking a very fine line” to maintain that they are merely conduits of organic content.
“This might lead to voices requiring social media platforms to start respecting similar codes of conduct as traditional media, which might bring the social media platforms into even more hot water than they are right now,” he said.
In revealing their findings on the Conversation, Graham and Andrejevic argue that Musk’s actions have “torpedoed the fantasy that social media platforms such as X are neutral”, citing previous form when Musk tweaked the algorithm to boost his own posts.
“For too long, social media platforms have enjoyed immunity for the information they selectively inject into users’ feeds,” the pair wrote. “It’s time for governments to reconsider their approach to regulating the oligopolistic power over our information environment wielded by a handful of tech billionaires.”
