A “White White for Harris” Zoom call reportedly raised $4 million in donations for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. Following the call, the @dudes4Harris account on X was briefly suspended.
Is this election interference?
If we stay realistic, the answer is of course not.
even if X CEO Musk ordered the suspension of the account for political reasons, there cannot be any (legal) wrongdoing here. X is a private platform and it does not have any obligation to be politically neutral. Explicitly suppressing pro-Harris content is undoubtedly a bad business model, but it’s not illegal. Musk and the platform formerly known as Twitter are under no obligation to express conservative and progressive views equally or to give equal treatment to Republican and Democratic candidates.
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But there is no evidence that X deliberately tried to thwart Harris organizers. The dudes4Harris account is not directly related to the Harris campaign and has been suspended back It promoted and held a Zoom call and returned the next day. This is a very bad plan if the goal is to prevent its impact or fundraising. X may have various valid reasons for suspending the account.
The account’s suspension was “not a surprise,” writes technical dirt Editor-in-Chief Mike Masnick (who, notably, has been highly critical of both Policy X and Musk himself on many issues). “Shouldn’t an account with no clear official connection to a campaign suddenly amass a large number of followers and urge people to donate set off internal alarm bells for any trust and safety team? If it trips some cordons, neither will it. People are surprised.
However, if we stray from reality and enter the zone of partisan hysteria, the account’s temporary suspension is clearly Musk’s attempt to influence the 2024 election.
“Musk owns this platform and recognizes [former President Donald] Trump, mired in white identity grievances, has just shut down accounts used to counteract his core ideology and raise money for Trump’s opponents. This is election interference and it’s hard to see it differently.
“X has suspended the White Dudes for Harris account (@dudes4harris) after raising over $4 million for Kamala Harris. This is real election interference!” Brett Meiselas, Left Movement co-founder Meda Touch News,release.
Versions of those sentiments are now all over X, and the company has also been accused of maliciously conspiring against the KamalaHQ account and photographer Pete Souza. Some even believe Musk interfered in the election simply by sharing misinformation about Harris or President Joe Biden, or by posting pro-Trump messages from his personal account.
We are now firmly in the “everything I don’t like is election interference” situation. We’ve been here before. In 2020, conservatives cried foul when social media platforms temporarily suppressed links to stories about Hunter Biden or suspended some conservative accounts, while many on the left derided it as a conspiracy by the platforms to influence the election. . Now, as we all know, the shoe is on the other foot, and progressives are making the same arguments that conservatives were making at the time.
Musk himself is not immune to this paranoia and confirmation bias. For whatever reason, Google allegedly didn’t autocomplete search results for “Donald Trump” when Musk typed “President Donald.” So Musk posted a screenshot about the matter, asking “Election interference?”
Again, in reality: No.
As many people have pointed out, Google searches do still autofill Trump for them. So whatever’s going on here might just be a temporary glitch. Or it could be something specific that Musk entered into a previous search.
even if Google deliberately kept Trump’s name from autocomplete so it wouldn’t interfere with the election. This would be a strange and questionable business decision rather than an illegal one. But it’s foolish to think that the company is risking backlash by taking such a trivial step. Note that Musk’s accusation is not that Google is suppressing search result Regarding Trump, just his name was automatically filled in. What’s the theory of action here—that people who were planning to vote for Trump wouldn’t vote after having to type his name into a Google search? They can’t find information about Trump without autocomplete search terms?
“Please. I beg people: Stop it. Stop the conspiracy theories,” Masnick wrote. “Stop talking nonsense. If you can’t find what you’re looking for on social media, it’s not because a billionaire is trying to influence the election. It could just be because some anti-fraud system is broken or something. reason. “
Yes. all.
But I suspect many people know this and don’t care. Both parties have learned how to weaponize claims for election interference to attract attention, stoke outrage and gain influence.
As a reminder: Actual election crimes include improper money laundering, trying to prevent people from voting, threatening people not to vote in a certain way, providing false information on a voter registration form, voting multiple times or being elected to corruptly use power for a particular party or candidate profit-seeking officials. Trying to persuade people to support or oppose certain candidates does not qualify, even if you are really rich or famous, and even if your persuasion relies on misinformation.
Additionally, content moderation is extremely difficult to do correctly. If technology companies adopt biased moderation, they will lose far more than they gain.
So if you feel like you want to file accusations of election interference against X, Google, Meta, or some other online platform: Stop it. clam down. Take deep breaths, take a walk, etc. This is a moral panic. Don’t be its foot soldier.
More sex and tech news
• The Children’s Internet Safety Act passed the Senate yesterday with a vote of 91 to 3. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) were the only ones to vote no. (See more of this newsletter’s coverage of KOSA here, here and here.)
• A federal court dismissed a lawsuit filed under the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Trafficking Act (FOSTA) against user-generated pornographic sites that allegedly allowed the posting of videos featuring teenagers. Those who filed the lawsuit said the sites were guilty of “receiving” the videos. But the court held that “it can be argued that receipt of material or content is only the first step in any publishing regime; if so, then mere receipt of illegal material is not sufficient to exclude immunity under Section 230.”
• A broad definition of “child sex trafficking” is used to suggest that dating sites and apps should check IDs.
• The AI search war has begun.
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