After Twitter CEO Elon Musk released some Twitter source code on March 31, tech researcher and developer Steven Tey released a thread with some key points he uncovered. These included what appears to be a “Government Requested” intervention tool.
“When needed, the government can intervene with the Twitter algorithm,” Tey tweeted. “In fact, @TwitterEng even has a class for it — ‘GovernmentRequested.’” The screenshotted Twitter code Tey included in his tweet showed “SoftInterventionDisplayType.GovernmentRequested.” So what exactly does that mean? And why would it exist at all?
7. When needed, the government can intervene with the Twitter algorithm.
In fact, @TwitterEng even has a class for it – "GovernmentRequested"
Source → https://t.co/R1rpNHMDuO pic.twitter.com/YmavVJ8szi
— Steven Tey (@steventey) March 31, 2023
Tey further found that Twitter’s algorithm favors Twitter Blue subscribers, boosting them. The Twitter algorithm also divides users into four groups to track and compare their posts, Tey said: Musk, Power users, Democrat users, and Republican users. Tweets with video or images get a two-times boost, and “following to follower ratio matters.”
The key question remains, however — what does the “Government Requested” intervention involve, and does it still exist? Will Musk remove that intervention feature in the future? The Twitter Files revealed deep collusion between Twitter and the federal government to censor Americans and suppress certain narratives, including on the topics of COVID-19 and the 2020 election. Government agencies that colluded with Twitter include the FBI, the CDC, the Biden White House, the CIA, and the supposedly foreign-focused Global Engagement Center (operating under the oversight of the State Department).
The censorship allegations tie in with some of Tey’s findings. Among the highlights was the code citing “Misinfo,” i.e., misinformation around COVID-19 and presidential elections. These included the French, Brazilian, Philippines, and U.S. elections.
8. Presidential elections is also another big part of the Twitter Algorithm.
It can:
◆ Recommend election candidates to follow: https://t.co/iZGuYDLglj
◆ Suppress misinformation during Election events: https://t.co/s8wFunN42b pic.twitter.com/XKFCf9ZvnH— Steven Tey (@steventey) March 31, 2023
A Media Research Center poll from November 2020 recorded results indicating that Big Tech censorship of the Hunter Biden scandals helped swing the 2020 presidential election in favor of Joe Biden, as 4.6% of Biden voters wouldn’t have voted for him if they’d known of the scandals. And the Twitter Files revealed that Twitter had weekly meetings with the FBI before the 2020 election on what content and users to censor (mostly targeting conservatives). That included FBI priming on “Russian disinformation,” which is what the Hunter scandal was labeled as.
As for COVID-19, we all remember the steady barrage of government propaganda that they later admitted to be false, such as the claim that the COVID vaccines could stop transmission of the virus. Officials soon had to admit that was untrue, but such retractions never stopped Twitter from censoring Americans challenging the latest narrative. But in light of the government-requested intervention Tey identified in the now open-source Twitter code, was the federal government able to intervene directly for censorship purposes?
It would take someone far more expert than I am at coding to explain that, but if true, it would constitute a direct violation of the First Amendment since the federal government cannot constitutionally censor free speech directly. Twitter and the feds owe us some answers.
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