Elon Musk's X could have tweaked its algorithm to spice up his account, together with these of different conservative customers, beginning across the time he introduced his assist for Donald Trump's presidential marketing campaign. That's in line with a brand new examine revealed by Queensland College of Know-how (QUT), which discovered that Musk's posts particularly had been abruptly rather more in style.
The examine's authors – QUT affiliate professor of digital media Timothy Graham and Monash College professor of communication and media research Mark Andrejevic – seemed for the primary time at Musk's pledge earlier than and after Trump's endorsement in July. They report that since July 13, Musk's posts have obtained 138% extra views and 238% extra retweets than earlier than that date.
Musk's numbers “beat the general engagement developments seen on the platform,” they concluded. (This paper just isn’t the primary time it has been prompt that X adjusted its algorithm to particularly increase Musk's account).
The outcomes of the examine are just like different findings lately reported by The Wall Road Journal and The Washington Submit of potential right-wing bias in X's algorithms. Nonetheless, the researchers say they had been restricted by the “comparatively small quantity of knowledge” that might be collected as a result of the platform lower off entry to its Tutorial API. They add that whereas they see no indication of lacking knowledge, “there isn’t a assure that 100% of posts had been collected.”