- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
To the extent one can, this person brings receipts, including pointing out a trail left in source code.
Excerpt:
We also knowingly allowed foreign governments to manipulate the platform. State-backed groups from Israel, Iran, and Russia were running their own influence campaigns, and because their goals aligned with ours, we looked the other way. Even when they clearly broke the rules, we didn’t stop them.
Perhaps the most unethical part was how we manufactured news stories. One team would write completely fake articles, while another team would artificially boost their engagement metrics to make them go viral. We specifically targeted certain groups of people, knowing exactly how to manipulate their views and emotions.
The moderation team became a tool for our agenda. We systematically silenced anyone who got in our way, enforcing the rules when it suited us and ignoring them when it didn’t. Elon Musk himself was deeply involved in these decisions, often joking about being “Black Hat MAGA.”
What started as US election interference has now spread to other countries. We’re currently doing the same thing in Germany and other European nations. The damage we’ve done is immeasurable, and I don’t know if it can ever be fixed. People don’t know what’s real anymore, and that’s exactly what we wanted.
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It would be cool if the massive and influential conspiracy crowd that you guys have there would ever pick up and run with anything painting the right wing in a bad light, to the same extent they get excited about secret pizza messages. Almost as if the whole conspiracy theorist scene is manufactured and controlled by firestarters that thank all of the dumb pieces of shit for their gullibility and for looking the other way whenever it looks like the conspiracy might be coming from inside the building.
Social Media and Political Influence
Whistleblower Alleges AI-Driven Election Interference
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A former X (formerly Twitter) employee anonymously shared allegations on Substack claiming the platform was intentionally manipulated during the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
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According to the whistleblower, X’s algorithms were adjusted under Elon Musk’s leadership to prioritize pro-Trump and right-wing content. Some left-wing posts critical of Democrats were also boosted, but allegedly only to create a façade of balance.
- Backed Up by Research: These claims align with findings from a recent study that audited X’s algorithm. Key findings include:
- Right-leaning users experienced the most significant exposure bias, with the algorithm amplifying content aligned with their views.
- Both left- and right-leaning users saw reduced exposure to opposing viewpoints, reinforcing echo chambers.
- New accounts were reportedly subject to a distinct right-wing bias in their default timelines.
- While the whistleblower’s claims remain speculative, these independent findings suggest that X’s algorithm did, in fact, favor certain political narratives.
- Backed Up by Research: These claims align with findings from a recent study that audited X’s algorithm. Key findings include:
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AI-Generated Propaganda: The whistleblower alleges that thousands of fake accounts were created using advanced AI systems, Grok and Eliza, to disseminate political messaging. These accounts were designed to imitate real users and reportedly pushed targeted propaganda related to Trump’s economic claims, border policies, and cryptocurrency initiatives.
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To support these claims, the whistleblower pointed to a breadcrumb in the Eliza documentation, which describes how AI profiles could be pre-configured with specific narratives and responses. One example, allegedly labeled “Trump,” was programmed to amplify campaign messaging.
Marc Andreessen’s Connection to Eliza AI
- Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), is closely connected to Eliza AI. His firm has backed Eliza Labs, the company behind the AI framework, which is also reportedly used internally at a16z (source).
- While it’s possible that the example in the Eliza public documentation in this context was coincidental or even intended as satire, the fact that Andreessen is backing technology capable of such manipulation raises serious concerns. It demonstrates how tools designed for decision-making and automation can easily be repurposed for political influence.
Andreessen’s Political Views
- Andreessen is an open supporter of MAGA politics and an advocate of Curtis Yarvin’s “Dark Enlightenment” philosophy, which proposes replacing democracy with a CEO-led “monarchy.”
- Yarvin recently wrote an article suggesting that “American democracy should be replaced by what he calls a ‘monarchy’ run by a ‘C.E.O.’”
- As The Verge summarized:
- “We are looking at a simple trade against personal liberty — abortion, the rights of gay and trans people, and possibly democracy itself — in favor of crypto, AI, and a tax policy they like better.”
Elon Musk’s Role
- The whistleblower also alleges that Musk was directly involved in these manipulations, reportedly overseeing algorithm changes and content moderation. Musk allegedly joked about being “Black Hat MAGA” while making these decisions.
- The claims further suggest that X allowed foreign influence campaigns from countries like Israel, Iran, and Russia to operate on the platform, as long as their goals aligned with the platform’s manipulated narrative.
Impact and Speculation
- The whistleblower describes the damage caused by these actions as catastrophic:
- “The damage we’ve done is immeasurable, and I don’t know if it can ever be fixed. People don’t know what’s real anymore, and that’s exactly what we wanted.”
- While the full extent of these claims has yet to be proven, the whistleblower’s account is bolstered by independent research and the connections of influential figures like Andreessen and Musk. Together, they paint a troubling picture of how powerful technology may have been used to undermine democratic processes.
Voting System Interference
Evidence of Election Hacking
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Stephen Spoonamore, a cybersecurity expert, issued a “Duty to Warn” letter to Vice President Kamala Harris, outlining evidence of vote manipulation in key swing states during the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
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Working with Smart Elections, Spoonamore revealed that voting tabulators were allegedly programmed to alter results after processing 400 ballots (up from 600 in 2020), a tactic designed to evade detection during recounts.
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This tampering reportedly influenced outcomes in critical states, supported by findings in an analysis of Clark County’s election results.
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Additional irregularities included the use of “bullet ballots,” where votes were cast only for the presidential race. These disproportionately favored Trump and deviated significantly from historical norms, suggesting deliberate interference.
Trump’s Statements on Manipulation
- Donald Trump’s public remarks have fueled speculation that he was aware of these activities:
- “We don’t need the votes,” he said, implying confidence in securing victory through means outside traditional voter turnout.
- At a rally, he remarked, “Elon was very effective. He knows those computers better than anybody. Those vote counting computers. And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide,” suggesting possible technological manipulation in vote counting.
- His statement, “You won’t have to vote anymore,” further hinted at confidence in a pre-arranged outcome.
Spoonamores document was largely debunked. If you check the numbers against official numbers, he is wildly off
Check again now their analysis and methodology has been released
Still is conjecture.
They are pointing to statistics and saying “see! Fraud” that’s not really evidence. Stats can be manipulated to show a lot of things.
Discussing Durham only:
Kamala was unpopular and very divisive for democrats, especially around the Palestinian genocide.
Many people probably didn’t choose her vs the attorney general.
That isn’t what evidence means. It absolutely is evidence.
The data is open, so is the analysis. If you read the bottom more is on the way and they’re seeking legal action to verify
https://electiontruthalliance.org/next-steps
If you’d look at it properly you’d see there are many things that wouldn’t occur by chance regardless of how unpopular she was.
Evidence of Election Hacking
The lack of self-awareness here is absolutely astounding.
what?
After 4 years of liberals laughing away MAGA conspiracies about hacked voting machines in the 2020 election, suddenly those concerns are very serious and very real?
I haven’t seen anything in the way of actual evidence something nefarious happened here, except some hefty speculation about split ticket voting and a couple vague (but entirely on-brand) comments from Trump.
It’s just funny to me that liberals are unironically repeating the same baseless accusations that chuds were for the last 4 years without much more in the way of evidence (if any at all)
If you can’t tell the difference between the nonsense Trump pushed out and this it sounds like you have a loose grip on objective reality. His points were incoherent and he got laughed out of court by judges he appointed. It wasn’t taken seriously because it was a joke.
Notably, these patterns in the voting data were also present in 2020 data, but less stark, and starting at 600 votes minimum. That is why Trump is so angry about 2020, and why he is convinced the dems cheated. He is angry because the country hated him so fucking much that they actually out voted a literal vote shifting algorithm.
Also I’m not a lib, and it was completely eviden they were attempting to steal the election the whole time through other means. (Changing laws, removing poll booths strategically in POC areas, gerrymandering, purging voter rolls, etc).
He also can’t keep his mouth shut about anything and just admits to shit unprompted - which we’ve also seen.
difference between the nonsense Trump pushed out and this
Trump and his allies cited exactly the same kind of ‘anomalous voting trends’ as evidence of vote manipulation. Unless you have something more substantive than ‘these ballots don’t look like we expected them to’ then this is exactly the same kind of non-evidence MAGA had.
The biden administration was exceptionally unpopular. Anti-Kamala democratic voters have been very clear about why they didn’t vote for her. Rather than reckoning with their complete unpopularity, democrats would rather blame their loss on ‘woke’ politics and vote manipulation.
They even have the publicy pushed smoothing algorithm that was used to make it less obvious
Why would a clandestine foreign agent publish malware on a public code repository? Some random reddit user claims to have found a repo on github that uses a publicly known username tied to a politically embroiled tech company and now we’re supposed to believe it was used to falsify an entire electoral system?
It doesn’t even pass the sniff test bud, what credibility are we supposed to lend to these anonymous users?
No they didn’t lol. Quote the evidence they presented to illustrate how daft it is in comparison. They failed at basic addition among a plethora of other equally hilariously incoherent shite.
That poll just shows a third of people who flipped from dem had it as their top issue. it doesn’t prove that’s why she lost the election even without considering the fraud.
Do you have any evidence that isn’t based on the assumption that democratic voters simply wouldn’t split their vote? Or the assumption that people wouldn’t just vote for president and not any other offices?
Like, IP logs or recount discrepancies? Evidence of malware on the machines? Anything other than “this looks implausible”?
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Like, sure. But anybody could have wrote this. Is there any evidence? If they wanna be a whistleblower, then do it. This is, unfortunately, kinda useless
Assuming this is real, it is far far too late for them to come forward feeling guilty. The time for action has long passed. The current “administration” won’t do a damn thing to address this. They made their bed and now they have to sleep in it.
Shit like this needed to come out weeks ahead of the election, not days into the next administration.
This feels like shit stirring.
I haven’t seen any corroboration of it yet, but it is exactly the fight they were having over TikTok. Not that China is stealing private data, that they would use the algorithm to affect the election.
And none of this is new people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica
They’re just putting into practice what they already learned and super charging it with AI agents.
Why is this posted in the shitpost community?Nevermind. Community sidebar explicitly says anything goes. That’s definitely not what shitposting is, but I’m not a mod.
Also, maybe post/link the receipts themselves. The only “breadcrumb” evidence is the characterfile example in the Eliza wiki being AI Trump.
People can write whatever words they want, and there was a hoax a while back with doctored screenshots of “twitter code” that supposedly exempted trump and white supremacist accounts from filtering. It was easily disproven by links to the leaked/unintentionally open to the public codebase.
Anyone who’s been paying attention to things should be well and aware that what the post claims has been going on for years by perpetrated by multiple actors. MAGAs have already been flooded by similar “I couldn’t stay quiet about this anymore” posts allegedly by shareblu employees that started coming out as far back as Trump’s first campaign.
Coincidence and “breadcrumbs” aren’t likely to convince anyone new that this shit has been happening.
Take it with a grain of salt. Also, it doesn’t make them a hero. They’re complicit.
I didn’t know that I can fully agree with something and yet find it dogshit just as much.
It’s basically a fabricated document that yet manages to portray the likely truth.
manages to portray the likely truth.
This is what is grabbing me. I know it’s what many of us want to hear because we could see it happening, and I know that makes it potentially a very seductive hoax.
I just hope someone in a position to prove it so is taking steps to do so.
JFC thanks for nothing :P but I understand the fear of retribution. Hopefully something comes of this.
Interesting information, but my response is ‘meh’.
How is this really any different than what Fox News does daily?
Partisan private companies gonna partisan.
And what is the dev doing about it? Nothing? Ok then.
I think it bears investigation by folks in a position to do so, that’s my only point. Folks have made reasonable expressions of skepticism, but I think it bears investigation and I hope someone is in contact with this person to attempt doing so.
