Elon Musk, the billionaire propagandist for Donald Trump and owner of X, admitted over the weekend that his social media platform restricts the spread of tweets that share links. But X users are starting to wonder how much more manipulation has been happening behind the scenes in recent weeks. Because one Palestinian journalist in particular appears to be experiencing a major issue with his account. Nobody can follow him for some unknown reason and it looks like many people who were already following him have been purged as followers.
Younis Tirawi has been covering the current war in Gaza ever since it started in late 2023, sending updates about the brutality that’s killed over 44,000 Palestinians and wounded at least 104,000. Tirawi has covered the war crimes being committed by the Israeli military in the occupied territories, which has obviously made him a target for hate among some in the Israeli media.
But something weird happened to Tirawi’s X account over the weekend. It appears his followers have largely been purged and anyone who tries to follow him won’t actually see his updates in their feed. Gizmodo tried multiple times to follow Tirawi’s account and after refreshing the page it was clear we weren’t able to make it stick. No matter what we did, it would always go back to showing we weren’t following him.
The journalist says he’s reached out to X about the issue, but there’s no sign that it’s something they’re going to fix anytime soon. Assuming there even is something to “fix,” given the fact that Musk has such a long history of being hostile to reporters.
I truly appreciate each and every one of you, my followers. You’ve become like family to me, and I’m so grateful for your support, comments, and concern.
I’ve reached out to X to address the issue, and hopefully, it will be resolved soon. Thank you for your patience!
— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) November 24, 2024
“I sincerely hope that the nuking of @ytirawi’s account is truly just a tech issue,” reporter Ryan Grimm tweeted on Sunday. “No journalist has done more the past year to expose Israeli military abuses than him. (If you followed him, you have to refollow. Then refresh your page and watch what happens.)”
X didn’t respond to emailed questions Monday morning. But that’s pretty typical of any company owned by Elon Musk. The Tesla CEO, now reportedly worth almost $350 billion, has previously said he doesn’t believe companies should have press offices to field questions from the media. Musk abolished Tesla’s PR department years ago and there was a period after he bought Twitter that any email to the company by reporters simply returned a poop emoji.
The poop emoji is no longer an automated response that journalists see when they email X, but there are still plenty of signs that Musk has utter contempt for anyone who may write critically about him. The billionaire has banned reporters from his site repeatedly after they shared information he didn’t agree with—all while laughably insisting he’s a “free speech absolutist.”
Musk also acknowledged over the weekend that X limits the exposure of any tweet that contains a link. Paul Graham, the venture capitalist who’s long been a Musk booster, wrote on Sunday that he feels like the manipulation is X’s biggest problem right now.
“The deprioritization of tweets with links in them is Twitter’s biggest flaw. It bothers me more than all the new right-wing trolls,” Graham wrote. “Trolls I’m used to, but what draws me to Twitter is to find out what’s going on, and you can’t do that without links.”
Musk chimed in to write, “Just write a description in the main post and put the link in the reply. This just stops lazy linking.”
What the hell is lazy linking? That part isn’t clear. But obviously the reason that some social media sites don’t like links is that it takes the reader away from the social media platform.
Musk also retweeted an account called DogeDesigner telling users to avoid posting links because they limit their reach.
Avoid posting links to external sites, as they limit your potential reach. Instead, prefer to upload your content directly to this platform.
If you still need to include a link, add it in the reply section to ensure your post’s reach isn’t affected. pic.twitter.com/Ns7o8IXvos
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) November 24, 2024
Ultimately, we don’t have specifics on how much Musk has been tinkering with the algorithm at X to restrict links. But it’s clear now that he’s doing it very consciously to boost the amount of time users will stay on his platform. Even more concerning, however, is the fact that Musk quite clearly manipulates the platform to fit his own partisan goals.
This is the guy, after all, who dumped a ton of his own money into getting Donald Trump re-elected. And even though Musk has endorsed some disturbingly racist and anti-semitic ideas in the past, some people see him cozying up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an opportunistic ploy to help Trump. Musk visited Israel in late 2023 about a week after endorsing a tweet that said the Jewish community was engaging in “hatred against whites.” Musk replied, “You have said the actual truth.”
Musk clearly knows people are leaving his platform in droves, moving to other Twitter-like platforms such as Bluesky and Threads. And the reason is pretty simple. Musk has embraced a far-right ideology and uses his social media site to push that agenda. But if Musk has also broken his site in such a way that people can’t do basic things like linking out to articles they like or even just following a user they want to follow, it really feels like he’s shooting himself in the foot long-term. Eventually, even the most die-hard Musk fans are going to see they’re not having a good time if they don’t have the freedom to follow an account that Musk may not like.
Because one of the most fundamental things a social media platform should deliver is the ability to see the content you want to see. And if that’s gone, then it’s not clear why anyone, regardless of political affiliation, would bother using X.
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