Misinformation on Twitter explains the media

There is much chuntering about how there are all of these horrible accounts on Twitter just doing whatever for clicks:

In 2024 the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) revealed that a network of accounts on X were posing as young American women, stealing images from European influencers to burnish their credibility. Often these images were manipulated to include pro-Trump hats and clothing.

The new location feature on X has allowed Benjamin Strick, who ran the original investigation, to confirm that almost all of these accounts purporting to be “independent Trump supporting” women are located in Thailand.

And so on. The big question being:

…experts are in disagreement over whether they may be state-backed influence campaigns or even opportunists trying to make a quick buck.

“Even”?

Some to many - even if not quite wholly all - will be people making rational decisions about the opportunities available to them. Making a few hundred $ a month off a medium sized account aimed at the UK is trivial. Running an account that appeals to the much larger US market would/could bring in a $thousand or two. There are plenty of parts of the world where that’s a significant - upper middle class even - income. Therefore we’d expect to see people doing exactly that - would be absolutely astonished if there were not people doing that.

What we find much more interesting is this:

However it’s possible though that the sheer number of pro-Trump accounts around the world might have as much to do with turning a profit as political influence, says Simon Copland, a researcher at the Australian National University.

“Social media is really based on attention … [and] on places like X or Twitter you can get money from that,” he says, adding that at the moment, the best way to get attention “is to be posting about Donald Trump.”

OK, so Twitter media is chasing the money by chasing the interests and viewpoints of the public. Not by creating, but by chasing.

Which then neatly explains the more conventional media. It’s a constant complaint that Britain’s a right wing place because the media is right wing. No view to the left of Attila the Hun ever gets a look-in, see? The population is thus propagandised into being right wing. But that’s not how it works at all. It is because Britain is a largely right wing nation that the media chases the interests and viewpoints of the public - not by creating but by chasing.

As we’d expect in a market of course. Suppliers try to work out what it is the buyers want then supply that.

We can see this in Twitter slop. Thinking that other media works differently is the error.

Tim Worstall