BRAINWASHED - Algorithms 01

The Big-Brother Algorithm – X (formerly Twitter)

I loved and enjoyed Twitter for over a decade. But it's a shame the X (formerly Twitter) is NO longer Twitter in fact. The X algorithm is a malicious Big Brother to watch and control public opinion as they like.

Unlike Twitter’s free and open platform, the X algorithm is designed to prioritize engagement FIRST. This has resulted in significant attention inequality. ONLY a tiny number of high-profile accounts dominate the platform’s visibility. Under Elon Musk, the X algorithm has shifted to intentionally boost specific types of accounts and content.

This biased inequality increasingly creates the “rich get richer” dynamics that favor paid subscribers and right-leaning, engaging content. Unless you are a famous or popular celebrity or a big capital business, your voice will be immediately suppressed and swept away amidst loud breezes of high-profile posts.

X Algorithm’s Inequality

Although it's rational as a for-profit business, X Premium subscribers receive a significant, documented algorithmic privilege in visibility, a roughly 4-times boost in-network, and a double boost out-of-network.

These paid boosts create a tiered system in which paying subscribers have inherently higher reach. Having said that, the content quality and engagement, whether favored by the algorithm, are still dominant.

As I will write further about political inequality later, the X algorithm amplifies right-leaning content and right-wing political activists. Instead, the X algorithm reduces visibility for traditional major news outlets. You can easily find many reports by right-leaning users experiencing higher levels of exposure inequality.

Through these political inequalities and biased amplification, the X algorithm tacitly nudges users toward more conservative political views. At least, the X algorithm intends so.

“POST-REALITY: How the X Algorithm Weaponized Extremism and Broke the Political Center”

(sponsored by Amazon)

In 2023, the X algorithm underwent drastic changes to heavily boost content from Elon Musk. His tweets received disproportionate exposure compared to other accounts with similar follower counts. As this unequal boost explicitly shows, unlike Twitter, the X algorithm intends to build up a one-man platform.

Moreover, the X algorithm suppresses tweets containing external links that take viewers off the platform. This means the X algorithm intends to keep users staying longer within the platform, increasing opportunities to show more ads. It cuts their reach by 30–50% or more as a penalty, to disadvantage journalists and content creators promoting their external sites.

To accelerate Inequality

In "For You" feed as the default, the X algorithm prioritizes highly engaging, inflammatory, sensational content over a user's chronological choices. This programmed centralization of attention creates a funhouse-mirror effect that leads to distorted perspectives on public opinion.

The X algorithm uses an exponential decay function to penalize flooding the feed with high-volume tweets, considering it a bot behavior. If posting too frequently, for example, 4 times or more in unnatural quick succession, results in significantly lower visibility for each additional post.

And within a single tweet thread, the X algorithm may only show the most highly engaging post, NOT the whole thread. This thread deduplication tends to strip the thread of original context.

X Algorithm’s Plain Biases

As a Japanese, I myself am a patriot and ultranationalist in politics. But I would strongly like to insist on the explicit biases, the unfair inequality among users of the X algorithm.

Especially in the "For You" feed, the X algorithm exhibits a significant bias, amplifying conservative, right-wing, and high-engagement content. The X algorithm explicitly promotes specific political viewpoints, particularly those favored by Elon Musk.

Extremely dangerous! These algorithmic biases can brainwash and cultivate users’ political views unconsciously toward more conservative positions over time as a propaganda machine.

Algorithmic Feed

The X algorithm shifted to the algorithmic feed, specifically in the “For You” feed, curated by Machine Learning (ML). The algorithmic feed orders posts by predicted user interest rather than the chronological flow.

The algorithmic feed is NOT random, but utilizes engagement data, such as likes, shares, comments, and watch time, to prioritize content designed to maximize user activity. The algorithmic feed blends content from followed accounts with stranger-provided recommendations.

This manipulated shift NOT only increased engagement but also shifted political opinions towards conservative positions. As I’ve mentioned, specifically in the “For You” feed, the X algorithm amplifies right-wing content, politicians, political activists aligned with Elon Musk, as well as posts with high engagement.

Filter Bubble

By the X algorithm, newbies or neutral accounts are also led to receive a default bias toward right-leaning content. Even if a heavy X user keeps seeing the “For You” feed purposelessly every day, the user’s view will be consolidated toward a certain direction unconsciously.

The X algorithm has executed differential uplifts in engagement metrics – views, reposts, and likes – for Elon Musk’s account and Republican-leaning accounts. Besides, the X algorithm reduces the visibility of opposing viewpoints while amplifying content that aligns with the user's existing ideological preferences.

And the rightward shift in political opinion and view rendered by the X algorithm can persist even after a user has switched back to a chronological feed.

These biased screenings or bigoted censorships contribute to a polarized filter bubble environment prevalent within the X platform. The user’s worldview will be narrowed day by day and confined within a monotonous colored bubble, and then the user will have completely lost sight of the diversity of the outside World.

How is X Algorithm watching and controlling Public Opinion?

While I myself am a Japanese extreme right-wing and agree with the MAGA, which can be paraphrased as the Make Japan Great Again in the same context, here I argue about the unfair inequality of the X algorithm as NOT appropriate for an open public platform.

The X algorithm significantly shapes public opinion by pushing users toward more conservative political views with plain favoritism, particularly on the "For You" feed. This algorithmic curation boosts right-leaning content and prioritizes right-wing political activists over traditional, mostly liberal, major news media.

Through these made-up trends, the X algorithm creates long-lasting shifts in user attitudes unconsciously, and the entire atmosphere in the platform regarding policies and political events, as a huge brainwashing machine.

(source: International Leadership Institute)

Posts appearing on the "For You" feed as recommendations are markedly steered toward conservative political viewpoints and priorities on immigration, crime, and other ongoing policies and political issues. And the political bias of the X algorithm does NOT immediately disappear. Even if a user has shifted back to a chronological feed, the lasting impact does NOT quickly reverse the attitudinal changes on public opinion.

The X algorithm prioritizes engagement over accuracy and frequently amplifies content from right-wing political activists. On the other hand, the X algorithm demotes and neglects traditional mainstream news organizations, significantly affecting the decision-making process and public opinion. The illusory trends that the X algorithm recommends and makes up look as if the majority and the true facts.

In addition, the X algorithm treats ALL interactions – replies, reposts, and likes – as ‘positive’ engagement, even if a user is objecting against a post. This causes divisive or controversial, and sensational content to be promoted more frequently as high-engagement, regardless of the substance or accuracy. This can cultivate radical views and a hotbed of fake news, and lose sight of what is the substance in a situation.

Echo Chamber

The X algorithm has built up an environment within the platform, in which a user ONLY encounters echoed information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own in a limited visibility. Within this closed system, the X algorithm amplifies prevailing views and excludes dissenting voices, so that existing beliefs are rarely challenged. This curated environment intensifies slanted radicalization and limits critical thinking.

In this way, the X algorithm reduces the number of bridge nodes connecting different communities. The diversity is detached and blinded within the X platform by accelerating echo chambers. It can increase the potential for both amplified radicalization and negative polarization.

Unlike Twitter, the X algorithm plainly favors paid accounts, right-wing perspectives, and high-engagement, sparkling sensationalist content. The X algorithm is built to lead to a highly skewed and unequal distribution of attention.

The X algorithm actually acts as an active, powerful curator of public opinion, rather than an open, FREE neutral platform, intentionally guiding the political focus of its user base. The X algorithm heavily influences and censors what users see, and it intends to cultivate its favorite political perspectives, rather than neutrally reflecting the democratic public discourse.

X is NO longer Twitter. Unlike Twitter, the X algorithm does NOT allow an equal opportunity to tweet to open public audiences. The X algorithm, as it intends, has definitely divided users into two: a sender or a receiver of information.

In this information World, to control the public opinion of the World means to determine the World’s view, and still more, to dominate the World without political authority. Money can buy the World.

Brainwashed

Friday, April 17, 2026

BRAINWASHED - Algorithms 01: The Big-Brother Algorithm – X (formerly Twitter)

BRAINWASHED - Algorithms 01

The Big-Brother Algorithm – X (formerly Twitter)

X Algorithm’s Inequality

“POST-REALITY: How the X Algorithm Weaponized Extremism and Broke the Political Center”

(sponsored by Amazon)

To accelerate Inequality

X Algorithm’s Plain Biases

Algorithmic Feed

Filter Bubble

How is X Algorithm watching and controlling Public Opinion?

Echo Chamber

“Lies of Omission: Algorithms versus Democracy”

(sponsored by Amazon)

BRAINWASHED - Dark Psychology 01: Why do we fall in love with an enemy? – Stockholm Syndrome [Related Post]

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