A technology researcher exposed a tool that apparently allowed the government to manipulate Twitter’s algorithm after the platform’s owner Elon Musk open-sourced the code.
Tech researcher and developer Steven Tey reportedly found a “GovernmentRequested” intervention tool in the recently released Twitter open-source code. The tool apparently enabled U.S. government officials to alter Twitter’s algorithm. The question is—why? Talk about dystopian Big Tech-government collusion.
Musk promised to release the code in March and followed through. Tey did a deep dive into the algorithm and released a Twitter thread of his findings, including details of the government tool. “When needed, the government can intervene with the Twitter algorithm,” Tey tweeted. “In fact, @TwitterEng even has a class for it –‘GovernmentRequested’.” The screenshot of Twitter code that Tey included showed, ‘SoftInterventionDisplayType.GovernmentRequested.’”
The Twitter Files exposed how Twitter and the federal government were colluding to censor Americans. The new revelations about Twitter’s source code makes the collusion between Washington D.C. and Silicon Valley all the more terrifying.
Among Tey’s other discoveries was that the code cites “Misinfo”, or so-called misinformation surrounding COVID-19 and elections. In the examples Tey listed, each of the entries were labeled with the word “deprecated,” which Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines as, “to express disapproval of.” The findings correlate directly with MRC’s research on the fallout of COVID-19 and election-related censorship across Big Tech platforms. MRC Free Speech America found over 800 cases of Big Tech censoring COVID-19-related free speech between March 2020 and February 2022 in its unique CensorTrack.org database. Not only that, but a November 2020 MRC poll found that Big Tech censorship of the Hunter Biden scandal helped steal the election for Joe Biden.
Twitter’s algorithm also divides users into groups based on political affiliation to track and compare their posts, Tey said. The four divisions are: @elonmusk, Democrat users, Republican users, and Power users.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact Twitter at (415) 222-9670 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
