Did Twitter tweet right -wing politicians? International study ends prematurely in 2023

Social media platforms provide a rich source of data for academic studies. A research group at the University of Sarland has now analyzed Twitter accounts of some 8,600 politicians from 12 countries. The team led by Ingmar Weber, who holds an Alexander von Humbolt Professorship at AI at the University of Sarland, wanted to know whether Twitter between 2021 and 2023 preferred tweets from politicians with political spectrum rights.

There is no brief answer to the period in question. In June 2023, however, Elon Musk blocked free access to Twitter data for educational research purposes.

Sometimes, research work ends when things begin to become exciting. Someone who knows what seems like a graduate computer scientist Brahmini Natki, who is working on his PhD. Under Professor Ingmar Weber at Society Computing Institute at Saarland University.

Over a period of two years, Natki and two Sarbruken-based political scientists Roja M. Navrit and Guspaye cartany analyzed tweets of 6,550 Twitter accounts, which were associated with some 8,600 politicians from twelve countries.

“Sadly, our analysis ended suddenly in June 2023 when Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter in October 2022, removed the free academic access to Twitter data,” said Natki. Nevertheless, Natki was able to draw some important conclusions from data that the team was able to assemble to the point. Analysis is now done Published In Quantitative Details Journal: Digital Media,

Researchers selected 12 countries with highest user activity on Twitter (now X) platform, ie Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom and United States. For each of these countries, researchers divided parliamentary representatives into two groups, depending on whether they can be assigned more for political leftist or more political rights.

“We opted for this binary distinction for the sake of simplicity and because the use of labels ‘left’ and ‘right’ is widely accepted worldwide to represent special political positions. To determine that this binary How to assigned to politicians and parties within.

After analyzing several thousand tweets for each politician, the researchers found no significant difference between the left tilt or the spread of materials from the right or right politicians in all the countries studied.

“We did the period in which we studied from 2021 to 2023, however, inspected the significance in the number of choice, slightly increase in the like-vertex ratio and a significant decrease in the number of retweet post musk oyster acquisitions. We believe that we believe It is because the early followers of a Twitter account are more politically and support the material more actively.

“But as the political message spreads to the wider audience, it is more likely that the number of choice will increase, while the retweet rate declines,” Natki said. Researchers used the metric “Like” instead of “ideas”, as the latter was subsequently introduced only after acquiring the platform by Elon Musk and was not available for the previous tweet. They, yet, were able to establish a relationship between two matrix.

Natki faced many problems while analyzing the huge amount of data involved. Many of these difficulties were related to dynamic changes on Twitter platforms between November 2022 and June 2023. One such change was a conversion of Twitter Blue from a premium subscription service for high-profile accounts. -Cost membership service that requires only one verified phone number.

Shortly after this new facility was introduced, it was temporarily removed. A uniform fate affects the rules that restrict disgusting conduct, which was aimed at preventing attacks on individuals and was removed even after the acquisition of the musk.

“The change in Twitter’s functionality also led to a change in the user’s population, making it difficult for us to characterize changes seen for a single specific reason,” Natki said.

“We believe that our study first provides a global analysis of how the trends in political engagement have moved over time, checking how the user’s activity on Twitter has developed during recent changes from the stage Has passed away.

“Our findings indicate that the political material on the stage reached the widespread audience after these changes. In the period before June 2023, we found no evidence of significant difference in the pattern of engagement between users on the left and which political On the right side of the spectrum.

Professor Weber highlighted an article in the Washington Post last October stating that those Republican politicians were the most active on X (East Twitter), were posted more often, were getting more views and the top -Titing were more followers than Democrats, although there was no evidence of platform censorship.

Other observers have reported that since the acquisition of Musk, the Twitter/X platform report has failed to remove the hatred tweet and re -activate many pre -suspended accounts.

“These worrying changes for social media platforms like Twitter/X are endangering democratic structures in many countries and requiring continuous investigation by educational researchers. We are calling for the implementation of laws like Article 40 of the Digital Services Act. So that academic researchers can get access to social network data.

Background: Interstate Institute for Social Computing (I2SC)

The i2SC pursues interdisciplinary research at the University of Sarland and provides a platform to share interactions and knowledge between social science, humanities and computer science. The institute is headed by Ingmar Weber, Alexander von Hambolt Professor for Artificial Intelligence, and Daniella Bron, Professor of Political Science.

Research conducted in i2SC includes two main areas: computing society and computing for society. The first of these areas concerns the use of computational methods to understand social events. Second is related to the use of these methods so that digitally aided interventions that improve society can be facilitated.