Federalist Sparks Musk Probe Of Harris Campaign X Manipulation
Elon Musk has announced that his team is investigating Vice President Kamala Harris’s potential manipulation of social media aimed at artificially inflating her support ahead of the elections. This inquiry follows a two-part investigative series published by The Federalist, which revealed that the Harris campaign has allegedly been utilizing coordinated messaging tactics, known as “astroturfing,” across various online platforms like Reddit and X (formerly Twitter). This practice involves creating a false impression of widespread support, likened to companies paying for fake reviews to boost their product visibility.
The investigation highlights concerns about the authenticity of political discourse on platforms like Reddit, where a significant number of posts have been linked to Harris’s campaign volunteers. These actions have raised questions about potential violations of platform rules and election integrity. Additionally, the report suggests that the Harris campaign may be instructing its supporters to systematically undermine criticisms by downgrading community notes that reflect poorly on her campaign. As the investigation unfolds, it aims to shed light on the implications of such strategic online behaviors for democratic processes.
X owner Elon Musk announced that his team is investigating Vice President Kamala Harris’ manipulation of social media to artificially inflate her online support.
The billionaire entrepreneur announced the probe after The Federalist published two parts of a three-part investigative series about the Democrats leveraging a cadre of dedicated followers to “spread election disinformation, and skirt election laws” with online forums, including X. (Read part one here and part two here.)
“We are investigating this,” Musk wrote on X a few weeks after warning voters at a Pennsylvania rally this fall that if Harris wins, “this will be the last election.”
According to the anonymous internet watchdog Reddit Lies, writing in The Federalist, the Harris campaign is engaged in a practice known as “astroturfing,” wherein massive swaths of coordinated messages generate an illusion of support far broader than actually exists.
“It’s no different than a shady company paying a team to write a bunch of fake Amazon reviews about their product to make it appear to be a better and more popular product than it is,” the watchdog reported this week. “On Amazon, that might result in a product getting more sales. In a U.S. election, it could mean that the falsely advertised candidate receives more votes. This behavior is not only incredibly dishonest, but in many cases, it directly violates the Terms of Service they’ve agreed to by operating on certain social media platforms.”
On Reddit, the sixth-most popular website in the world, “126 of the top 1,000 posts in the past month on r/Politics were posted by official Harris-Walz campaign volunteers.”
“Owning one out of every eight of all top posts in r/Politics is not an easy feat, and it doesn’t just happen,” wrote Reddit Lies, explaining how the Harris campaign made it happen as part of a coordinated effort of volunteers deliberately working to circumvent platform safety guards against spam. “It’s safe to say that the Harris-Walz astroturfing operation has fundamentally compromised the authenticity of political discussions on Reddit.”
Reddit Lies outlined in part two of the investigation for The Federalist how Harris supporters are also systematically downgrading community notes that make her campaign look bad. Despite reform measures implemented at X under Musk, “virtually none of the false and misleading tweets from Kamala Harris’ campaign have Community Notes appended to them.”
“One likely explanation for this discrepancy is that the Harris campaign is directing volunteers on its Discord server to vote down Community Notes even when those notes accurately say the campaign is being deceptive,” Reddit Lies reported. “In the ‘twitter-community-notes’ channel found on the Harris-Walz Discord, paid Democrat staffers are also writing dubious Community Notes on X to undermine GOP and Trump messaging. They then encourage volunteers to rate them positively.”
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