Elon Musk, Donald Trump’s billionaire propagandist and owner of X, admitted this weekend that his social media platform limits the distribution of tweets sharing links. But X users are starting to wonder to what extent the manipulations have increased behind the scenes in recent weeks. Because one Palestinian journalist in particular seems to have a major problem with his story. No one can follow him for some unknown reason and it seems that many people who were already following him have been purged as followers.

Younis Tirawi has been covering the current war in Gaza since it began in late 2023, sending updates on the brutality that has killed 44,000 Palestinians and injured at least 104,000 people. Tirawi covered up war crimes committed by the Israeli army in the occupied territories, which obviously made him a target of hatred among some in the Israeli media.

But something weird happened to Tirawi’s X account this weekend. It appears his followers have been largely purged and anyone trying to follow him won’t see his updates in his feed. Gizmodo tried to follow Tirawi’s account several times and after refreshing the page, it was clear that we weren’t able to keep him going. No matter what we did, it always showed that we weren’t following him.

The reporter says he has contacted X about the issue, but there is no indication that this is an issue they will resolve in the near future. Even assuming there’s anything to “fix”, given that Musk has such a long history of hostility towards journalists.

I truly appreciate each and every one of you, my followers. You have become like family to me and I am very grateful for your support, feedback and concern.

I have contacted X to resolve the issue and hope it is resolved soon. Thanks for your patience !

—Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) November 24, 2024

“I sincerely hope that the nuclear destruction of @ytirawiThe Google account is really just a technical glitch,” tweeted journalist Ryan Grimm. Sunday. “No journalist did as much as him last year to expose Israeli military abuses. (If you followed it, you need to follow it again. Then refresh your page and see what happens.) »

X did not respond to emailed questions Monday morning. But that’s pretty typical of any company owned by Elon Musk. The CEO of Tesla, now worth nearly $350 billion, has previously said he doesn’t think companies should have press offices to answer questions from the media. Musk abolished Tesla’s PR department years ago and there was a period after he bought Twitter where any email to the company from journalists simply returned a shit emoji.

The poop emoji is no longer an automated response that journalists see when emailing X, but there are still plenty of signs that Musk completely despises anyone who might write critically about him. The billionaire has journalists banned from his site on multiple occasions after sharing information he disagreed with – while ridiculously insisting he was a “free speech absolutist”.

Musk also acknowledged this weekend that X limits the exposure of any tweet containing a link. Paul Graham, the venture capitalist who has long backed Musk, wrote on Sunday that he thinks manipulation is X’s biggest problem right now.

“The deprioritization of tweets containing links is Twitter’s biggest flaw. This bothers me more than all the new right-wing trolls,” Graham wrote. “I’m used to trolls, but what draws me to Twitter is knowing what’s going on, and you can’t do that without links.”

Musk chimed in to write: “Just write a description in the main post and put the link in the reply. This simply stops lazy links.»

What is a lazy link? This part is not clear. But obviously the reason some social media sites don’t like links is because it takes the reader away from the social media platform.

Musk also retweeted an account called DogeDesigner telling users to avoid posting links because they limit their reach.

Avoid posting links to external sites, as they limit your potential reach. Instead, prefer to upload your content directly to this platform.

If you still need to include a link, add it in the reply section to ensure the reach of your post is not affected. pic.twitter.com/Ns7o8IXvos

– DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) November 24, 2024

Ultimately, we don’t have details on the extent to which Musk tinkered with X’s algorithm to restrict links. But it’s clear now that it does this very consciously to increase the length of time users stay on its platform. But even more worrying is the fact that Musk is very clearly manipulating the platform to suit his own partisan goals.

This is the guy, after all, who spent a ton of his own money to get Donald Trump re-elected. And even if Musk approved some worrying elements racist And anti-Semitic ideas In the past, some saw his rapprochement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an opportunistic ploy to help Trump. Musk visited Israel in late 2023, about a week after endorsing a tweet claiming that the Jewish community engaged in “hatred against white people.” Musk replied“You told the real truth.”

Musk clearly knows that people are leaving his platform in droves to other Twitter-like platforms, such as Blue sky and son. And the reason is quite simple. Musk has adopted a far-right ideology and uses his social media site to promote this agenda. But if Musk also destroyed his site in such a way that people can’t do basic things like link to articles they like or even just follow a user they want to follow, we really have the feeling like he’s shooting himself in the foot. term. Eventually, even the most die-hard Musk fans will realize that they won’t have a good time if they don’t have the freedom to follow an account that Musk might not like.

Because one of the most fundamental things a social media platform should offer is the ability to see the content you want to see. And if that’s no longer the case, it’s unclear why anyone, regardless of political affiliation, would bother using X.