What Are the Politics of a Platform? The Case of X.

In the 20th century, people worried about publishing magnates controlling the media. In the 21st century, people worry about tech billionaires controlling social media platforms. Certainly, the owners of the platforms have many tools available to them to shape discourse, including but not limited to design, algorithms, content moderation, monetization and other economic incentives. And, they have more visibility than anyone else into how these various dynamics interact.

Although people have long made claims that Facebook, Google, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube and others have a political bent — usually from both sides — X is a particularly compelling object of study. Elon Musk has shaped the platform in significant ways to satisfy his own interests. But what can we observe about how his interventions, or lack thereof, have favored one set of politics over another? This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer from the outside, but attempting to do so may help us get at important questions about where bias may emerge that we can ask about all platforms.