there were three main pieces of actual evidence i leaned on:
1. the nytimes story on account silencing, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/23/business/elon...
2. the visible boost of low-value tweets (though i should have connected to the x api hose and quantify the data),
3. this paper — https://github.com/timothyjgraham/AlgorithmicBiasX/blob/3f4c...
which actually didn’t make it to the the post because the essay was basically finished by the time i remembered i had it. I should have included it. it shows an algo change that boosts elon’s reach specifically.
every other source was speculative:
superbowl fiasko - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/15/elon-musk... - little evidence
elon forced 100 engineers to boost his tweets ? - hearsay
there are also supposed whistle blowers - https://substack.com/@theconcernedbird/p-154577954 - but again. no evidence.
And the algorithm is still closed source.
i’m sorry the writing beyond the graph didn’t land for you.
mr gruez - I'll do better next time.
-- the author
there were three main pieces of actual evidence i leaned on:
1. the nytimes story on account silencing, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/23/business/elon...
2. the visible boost of low-value tweets (though i should have connected to the x api hose and quantify the data),
3. this paper — https://github.com/timothyjgraham/AlgorithmicBiasX/blob/3f4c...
which actually didn’t make it to the the post because the essay was basically finished by the time i remembered i had it. I should have included it. it shows an algo change that boosts elon’s reach specifically.
every other source was speculative:
superbowl fiasko - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/15/elon-musk... - little evidence
elon forced 100 engineers to boost his tweets ? - hearsay
there are also supposed whistle blowers - https://substack.com/@theconcernedbird/p-154577954 - but again. no evidence.
And the algorithm is still closed source.
i’m sorry the writing beyond the graph didn’t land for you.
mr gruez - I'll do better next time.
-- the author