Elon Musk, owner and chief technology officer of social media platform X, still has work to do.
Musk’s oft-stated and seemingly sincere desire to transform X into a bastion of free speech has failed to produce anything meaningful, according to a compelling and disturbing study from the Media Research Center. improvement, which amplifies the elected left and stifles their conservative counterparts.
The MRC praised Musk for “making great strides” on free speech. But data collected by MRC researchers shows that “remnants of old Twitter censorship” still exist.
Between July 1 and 2, MRC researchers conducted eight tests using X’s artificial intelligence search assistant, Grok, designed to determine how the platform assigned visibility scores to members of Congress. This is important because the visibility score determines which accounts X will enhance and which accounts will be suppressed.
In short, the quiz found that congressional visibility scores depend on four weighted factors: mass appeal (38%), reputation (30%), toxicity (21%) and attention (11%).
Of course, these factors should set off alarm bells in the reader’s mind. After all, “popularity” and “attention” can have objective components, but “reputation” and “toxicity” are entirely subjective.
In fact, these factors have startling consequences when applied to elected legislators and their X accounts.
For example, the MRC found that “X gave Democrats a clear advantage” in Congress.
Furthermore, the X algorithm prefers leftists to moderates, and moderates to conservatives.
“Generally speaking, the more left-leaning a member of Congress is, the more visible their account is to Platform X users. On the other hand, the more right-leaning a member of Congress is, the more penalized their account is by the algorithm.
The average visibility score supports this argument for algorithmic bias. On a scale of 0-100, Senate Democrats have an average visibility score of 82.4, while Senate Republicans have an average visibility score of just 66.8. Meanwhile, House Democrats’ average visibility score is 67, while their Republican colleagues’ average visibility score is just 58.6.
But these averages only tell part of the story. For example, among 100 senators, 42 with the highest popularity scores belong to the Democratic Party.
One can hardly imagine a more blatant act of election interference than secretly amplifying the X account of a left-leaning politician.
Specific examples make the story worse.
Shockingly, the MRC found that
Additionally, New York Senate Majority Leader Schumer received the highest overall visibility rating of any elected lawmaker.
Crucially, MRC doesn’t blame Musk for these ridiculous ratings. Instead, the study cited what it called “revolt against Musk within the company.”
Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter (later renamed
Yet, as MRC research shows, the fight against left-wing authoritarianism continues.
This article originally appeared in Western Daily News.
