Manipulative algorithm of Twitter: Both social media and 'crime scene'

As Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, put it, 'Twitter is both a social media company and a crime scene...' So much so that, in documents published especially since December 2022, it was revealed that Twitter and the US carried out psychological warfare operations, spreading some topics while covering some, and censoring some while increasing the visibility of some others. Elon Musk intervened in these operations carried out by the hand of Twitter by publishing Twitter Files. In the first files published on December 9, 2022, it was announced that Twitter employees created a blacklist completely hidden from the public, interfered with trending topics, and reduced the visibility of the accounts that were in focus. So much so that even those who claimed that the COVID shutdowns were negative for children were censored. The tweets of people included in the 'Trends Blacklist' were blocked on trending topics. People included in the 'Search Blacklist' were filtered out from the search results. It also reduced the visibility of tweets of those placed in the 'Do Not Amplify' category. Users were skeptical of this until Elon Musk took over Twitter. Twitter management, who said to the public that there was no such censorship, continued to apply what they called Visibility Filtering (VF) within the company. Visibility Filtering (VF) has many functions such as preventing to find users by searching, blocking the discovery of certain tweets, preventing the tweets of selected users from appearing in the trend. The company was doing this censorship by the SRT-GET unit -in secret from the public - based on the policies it called SIP-PES. The company also has actions to suspend the user openly to manipulate the platform. But as you can see, users are suspended for no reason in most cases. With applications such as 'Secret Blacklist', 'Shadow Banning' and 'Visibility Filtering', which it carries out completely confidential, Twitter almost turns users and content they don't like into ghosts on the platform. But the company is not satisfied with this. 'Whitelist', 'Blue Thick' etc., on the other hand, increases the visibility of the users and content they want. Twitter exempts users and content it desires from complaints and bans. In this context, it was revealed that Twitter had been supporting the Pentagon's covert propaganda operations for years. Collaborating with the Pentagon for psychological impact operations, Twitter provided special protection to many Twitter accounts. CENTCOM, the unit that founded and protects the PYD, the Syrian branch of the terrorist organization PKK, requested from Twitter to increase the interaction of many Twitter accounts addressing the Middle East, to give them a 'Blue Tick' and to be included in the 'Whitelist'. The Whitelist tag provided to the Twitter accounts prevents the verification of accounts, spam, etc. without the need for a 'Blue Tick'. It ensures exemption from complaints and increased visibility. It can be seen that CENTCOM has cut its relationship with the accounts that it has increased its visibility with the Whitelist when needed. The information revealed shows that Twitter executives are aware of the fake and secret propaganda network set up by the US Department of Defense (DOD). In only one of the emails sent from the US Department of Defense, 157 account information is transmitted. This gives us a clue as to the size of this clandestine ops network of CENTCOM. Türkiye, for example, is located in the EUCOM region. Türkiye is actively intervening in the CENTCOM field of activity with operations in Syria and Iraq. The elections in Türkiye were recently described by the United States as 'the most important event of the year'. Again, the desires and efforts of the US to change the government in Türkiye have been known for a long time. Accounts and posts making propaganda for FETO and PKK in Türkiye have started to appear frequently in front of Twitter users. Although users do not follow these accounts, they have come across these posts more frequently during the selection process. Especially in the last month, the visibility and interaction of the accounts that support Erdoğan has been reduced. On the other hand, opposition leaders, opposition accounts, even FETO and PKK accounts started to be suggested by the Twitter algorithm. In these days when the election process is started, it is seen that the presidential candidate Kılıçdaroğlu's account is also in this interaction operation. Kılıçdaroğlu's posts are forcibly shown to users even if they are not followed. While the opposition accounts in Türkiye are supported with advertising and interaction for free in this way, interaction restrictions and censorship are applied to accounts close to President Erdogan. All of this is happening when accounts close to Erdoğan can't advertise on Twitter, even for money. Upon the criticism, Elon Musk announced that the tweet recommendation algorithm will be available as open source on March 31. In his statements, Musk describes the tweet recommendation algorithm as 'quite complex' and states that they found too many stupid things. This raises suspicions that content and users can still be interfered with by the Pentagon and Twitter Regional Offices, and that this cannot be prevented.

Manipulative algorithm of Twitter: Both social media and 'crime scene'

In documents published especially since December 2022, it was revealed that Twitter and the US carried out psychological warfare operations, spreading some topics while covering some, and censoring some while increasing the visibility of some others.