A computational analysis of potential algorithmic bias on X during the election | Hacker News Reader

A computational analysis of potential algorithmic bias on X during the election

eprints.qut.edu.au

21 pointsiudqnolq5 comments

Excuse my ignorance but putting aside all the fraught politics of the day, I would love to see some unbiased critique of the analysis either for or against. Obviously a response will be: “This change could have been organic in response to the assassination attempt”. Can someone with a statistical background chime in why that is not possible or is possible?

> This technical report presents findings from a two-phase analysis investigating potential algorithmic bias in engagement metrics on X (formerly Twitter) by examining Elon Musk’s account against a group of prominent users and subsequently comparing Republican-leaning versus Democrat-leaning accounts. The analysis reveals a structural engagement shift around mid-July 2024, suggesting platform-level changes that influenced engagement metrics for all accounts under examination. The date at which the structural break (spike) in engagement occurs coincides with Elon Musk’s formal endorsement of Donald Trump on 13th July 2024.

So X _is_ Elons personal propaganda machine.

I don't read X, but in the last few days I get the impression Youtube Shorts are becoming Elon's personal propaganda machine.

About 1 in 20 shorts in my feed are clips of Elon saying something stupid yet appealing, basically meme videos of Elon-the-saviour, with thousands of thrilled we-love-Elon-he's-brilliant and this-is-much-better-than-corporate-media (spot the irony...) comments below.

The comments seem AI generated or paid for to me because I can't imagine so many people thrilled in such a uniform and bland way, and similar style, with virtually no intelligent responses or discussion about any of the issues. Given the obvious politics and consequences of Elon's policies, I'd expect to see something in the comments if they were real people.

I understand the feed and comment promotion algorithm might promote uniformly similar comments to create a misleading bubble, though.

Something I’ve noted is that when some leader says “things are rigged”, they’re not just randomly accusing things of being unfair. Instead what they’re saying is that they have receipts for the many times they’ve had things rigged in their favour and they’re just saying the quiet part out loud.

It’s just so cheap to buy influencers, push content with vote farms, and create artificial organic virulent content that it’s not even pocket money levels of expenditure for these people.

Elon probably has half a dozen internet publicist companies on they payroll and I doubt he even notices what they specifically do other than being amused by their tweets in his name.

Now do the same with google search results.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com