– A previous study of the 2016 and 2020 elections found that “Twitter reduced the Republican vote share” during Trump’s last two White House bids.

ISTANBUL

For his third campaign for president, Donald Trump has a new supporter who many believe could be a game-changer: Elon Musk.

We’ll know in a few days if that’s the case, but Musk’s support has already given Trump an advantage in an area that eluded him in his last two bids for the highest office.

X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, appears to disproportionately amplify messages from Republican influencers and politicians, according to two recent surveys.

A Wall Street Journal analysis found that new X users were presented with large amounts of right-wing political content, regardless of their level of interest in politics.

A separate Washington Post report found that Republican politicians are much more likely to go viral on X, and many have seen a larger increase in their followers over the past 15 months compared to their Democratic counterparts.

This represents a stark change from a 2023 joint article that found “Twitter reduced Republican vote share in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections,” particularly in terms of undecided voters.

The study found that “Twitter’s relatively liberal content may have persuaded voters with moderate views to vote against Donald Trump.”

“The most plausible explanation we have is actually that Twitter is a predominantly liberal platform, or at least that was the case in 2020 and 2016,” Carlo Rasmus Schwarz, co-author of the study “The effect of social media on elections: evidence from the United States,” he told Anadolu.

“We consistently found that counties or regions in the United States with the highest Twitter usage were fundamentally much more likely to vote Democratic than Republican.

“A doubling of Twitter usage was, more or less, associated with about a 2% reduction in the Republican vote share.”

“Clearly a big change”

Since Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X, many have spoken of a perceived rightward shift in the platform’s content and user base.

“Musk’s takeover of Twitter is clearly a major change,” said Schwarz, an assistant professor at Bocconi University in Italy.

He said preliminary evidence of the amount or type of content changes, as well as policy changes, suggests “that right-wing users apparently felt encouraged to express their opinions, including to some extent hateful.”

“This would be a factor that should mainly benefit the Trump camp in the next elections,” the researcher said.

This is apparently happening through .

Another trend has been the emergence of more “echo chambers,” particularly for the right-wing views of Trump supporters, according to Schwarz.

“We have evidence that the algorithm can actually steer people in one direction or the other,” he said.

“In particular, people with extreme ideologies can really take advantage of this and form these increasingly detailed echo chambers, which are then to some extent exacerbated by the algorithm.”

However, Schwarz pointed out that it’s also possible that this shift in content could work against Trump in his attempt to sway undecided voters, particularly in key states that could decide the White House race.

While the people most likely to be convinced by social media are undecided voters, they are also “more moderate voters… who are turned away by a lot of inflammatory rhetoric,” he said.

“What could happen is that if there is now too much inflammatory rhetoric on the platform, these independents will disengage completely and thus not be exposed to the content changes currently present on the platform,” he said. he added.

The Anadolu Agency website contains only part of the information offered to subscribers of the AA Information Distribution System (HAS), and in summary form. Please contact us for subscription options.