Since acquiring the social media site two years ago, Tesla and Spacex billionaire Elon Musk defined twitter as the land of liberty of speech. But over the course of 2024, as the company is now called X, it has turned from the place that looked like a town square where people share their thoughts into the place that is even more separated and posts appear even more unfriendly.
There are some accounts that post visited political opinions and fake news some of which have been reported as producing hate some have newly increased popularity.
All of this counts because while X may not have the users count of other important social media platforms, it does look to play an important role in political address.
Not only it is a platform through which some exact politicians future heads of state and governments, as well as many police forces, share statements and feelings.
Now its owner straight up hires Donald Trump, a relationship that may dramatically change how the CEOs of other major social media businesses respond to the next POTUS.
Now, let’s study what is powerful this current round of change? Have there been changes in the kind of people who use X in the past one year—in which case it must have been affected by factors outside their control Or is it the result of actions been taken purposely by those in charge?
Rise of the Twitter ‘media’
Two months ago Expected West was not a thing on X. Now the profile, which describes itself as ‘Defender of Western values and culture’, has 131,600 followers (and this number is increasing). Jointly for all its post it is now saving close to and somewhat over 30 million view daily, as detailed by its creator.
Their latest video updates which contain news alert type of descriptions include a spoof video of Trump telling the British Prime Minister he is going to ‘invade your country and make Britain Great Again’.
There have also been many threads that were supportive of far-right activist Tommy Robinson and some plan theories about the farmer’s protest in India and the knife attack in which three kid were killed at Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport.
Necessarily, the West rejects such claims as distributing false information and irritating abuse or violence. ‘The purpose of my X account is to be the speaker of the majority of the ignored West,’ its owner said to me. They wouldn’t tell me their individuality when we were writing, but now they say that we are “Gen Z” and not “Russian.”
‘Free’ information and opinions will again force [the US and the entire West and Europe to] shift even more to the right, which is already evident by Donald Trump’s presidency and increasing support of European far-right movements,” one user claimed. Internationally, it will translate to: corrupt politicians and leaders would be exposed.
They seem to believe that it’s the end of what they refer to as the ‘MSM,’ or Mainstream Media. That’s perhaps no surprise given that, following the US Election, Mr Musk himself told X users: “You are the Media Now”.
From blue ticks to likes: Changes at X
When Mr Musk first bought Twitter, he spoke of wanting to provide a home for all political perspectives and fighting against what he perceives as censorship from social media companies and governments.
That said, changes didn’t wait for any official announcement, which came weeks later amid mass layoffs and shifts in moderation policies regarding matters such as political disinformation.
There have also been various alterations to the nature of feeds including the creation of two separate sections: “Following”, which exhibits the accounts you follow and “For You” as would be expected, based on your preferences like TikTok.
Now, however, one must pay to subscribe to X Premium to get a checkmark. The basic type of subscription is there with three types; to date in the UK, the premium tier is about £10 per month.
Profiles with checkmark are allowed more opportunities and visibility – and can earn based on the attention they receive from other checkmarked profiles. Starting from October X has decided to alter its site’s conditions involving revenue generation for individual accounts completely shifted from ads to likes, shares, and comments from other Premium accounts.
Of course other social media sites allow users to make money from posts and let them share sponsored content – this is not uncommon – but most major sites have rules that allow them to de-monetise or suspend profiles that post misinformation.
X currently lacks rules that would lead to a de-monetisation of accounts based on such types of posts, although users are allowed to add community notes to potentially deceptive or false tweets.
And it does not enable “deceptive media” such as manipulated or synthetic video that “could lead to confusion to the public on issues, affect the safety of the public or cause significant harm”.
Inevitable West has found that X can now turn into a job. From them, I learned that with the posting frequency of about seven time a day, the requirement balance of $2,500 could be earned every month.
They claim there is another account earning $25,000 every month – there is no substantiation of this but they add that the account has half a million followers and posts about thirty times daily.
Has the algorithm changed?
Due to the fact that change can sometimes be seen when the website makes changes to algorithms (or recommendation systems) in some way, for example in order to inflate and enrich certain posts. What is left to question is whether or not that may be the case here?
Of course, I can say that the number of posts suggested in the ‘For You’ tab is fewer than compared to a year ago.
This is something I investigated through an “Undercover Voter project”, which I developed which basically means I had over 20 social media accounts dealing with fakes with different point of views from several states in the United States and a few states in the United Kingdom.
These character have accounts on main sites including x and enabled me to question what other accounts were suggested on the social media. The accounts are fake and do not communicate with real persons or have friends.
Regardless of the apparent political affiliation, which their comments may represent, I noticed that for the last six months of this year their feeds feature has been characterized by apparent polarization and seems to include more of the trump supporting elements or the opposing political figures and people from all over the world who are not in sync with the new US president elect.
But all this appears to be the result of the environment and the changes to the rest of the site, not just a modification of the algorithm.
For years, Andrew Kaung, who analyzed user safety at TikTok until recently, and worked at Meta, has been studying how these recommendation algorithms can be modified. He adds: ‘What we have witnessed is not only algorithms are changing but Due to the lack of filters in the name of freethought What we’ve seen on x’.
The unintended influencers
I messaged dozens of other large accounts, who paint the picture of the expanding clamp the site is able to exert on, frequently and not predictably.
“This I must admit I never planned on being an influencer,” said one of these profiles called Andi who claimed to be based in New York. But still I think that since I do have such a platform I should at least attempt to try and use that to promote my own interests.
He explain how as a result of the post about the squirrel that was put down because people thought it might have rabid, he shared a meme which has since garnered 45 million views. Andi parallels him to podcaster with 14.5 million followers on X.
“But I am no Joe Rogan, so it’s really special that something I post can get almost as much viewership.”
Andi and other X accounts I’ve communicated with think the changes to X are positive because they now have reach they never expected.
Allegations of moderation bias
Recall, in the beginning of November there was a tentatively related shooting at german market where 5 were killed and over 200 injured, the event was discussed on X extensively. A large part of the conversation revolved around the suspect, a German-based Saudi Arabian man. German prosecutors have stated that the probe is still open, but hinted that one possible reason could be anger at how Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany.
Inevitable West was among those who commented: “Raid the mosques. Ban the Quran. Carry out mass deportations. Bash: Our patience has officially expired.”
The account has been claimed to fuel hatred by sharing contents such as immigration and religion issues. Some of the other users expressed that it was likely to cause hostility. But the profile retorted and said the they were “actually inciting safety.”
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