Musk Comments On Social Media Manipulation
Elon Musk’s recent announcement about investigating Vice President Kamala Harris’s alleged manipulation of social media platforms is stirring up fresh controversy as the 2024 election intensifies.
Musk, who owns X (formerly Twitter), revealed that his team is examining reports about Harris’s campaign tactics, particularly accusations of astroturfing—a strategy of generating fake grassroots support to give the illusion of widespread endorsement online. The probe announcement came on the heels of The Federalist’s exposé suggesting that the Harris-Walz campaign was utilizing an organized network of followers to spread misinformation and evade social media guidelines.
According to an anonymous watchdog known as Reddit Lies, the Harris campaign is reportedly orchestrating large-scale coordination across platforms, including X and Reddit, to bolster her online presence and control narratives.
Through well-orchestrated volunteer groups and “forum champions,” the campaign is allegedly crafting an impression of overwhelming support by dominating popular threads and comments on political topics. On Reddit’s influential r/Politics forum, for example, Harris campaign volunteers reportedly secured 126 of the top 1,000 posts last month alone, a statistic that has raised concerns over the integrity of online political discourse.
We are investigating this https://t.co/JR7gikRDxY
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 30, 2024
Astroturfing, the watchdog argued, is not unlike businesses inflating their Amazon reviews to mislead consumers, but with far more significant implications in a national election. The watchdog also revealed how campaign volunteers systematically downgrade Community Notes that highlight misleading posts by Harris.
Community Notes, a feature introduced by Musk to X, allow users to flag inaccurate information; however, some Harris campaign followers allegedly use internal Discord channels to coordinate downgrading these notes on posts that reflect poorly on Harris. They’re also reportedly creating their own notes to counteract conservative messaging, influencing users’ perceptions of GOP and Trump-related posts.
This investigation could bring a new layer of scrutiny to digital campaign tactics. Musk himself has raised alarm, warning voters at a Pennsylvania rally that if Harris were to win, it could signal a dramatic change in how future elections unfold.
The outcome of this probe may influence the broader conversation about how social media is used, and possibly misused, in U.S. elections, especially if evidence confirms these tactics violated platform policies. As Musk and his team delve deeper, the findings could alter campaign strategy and reshape social media policies well beyond 2024.