Billionaire Elon Musk has persistently praised Twitter as a bastion of freedom of expression ever since he bought the social network two years ago.
But during the year 2024, X, as it is now called, has evolved from what seemed like a town square into a polarized hub where attitudes and posts seem even more controversial.
Certain profiles that share misleading political views and news, some of which are accused of spreading hatred, have recently become very popular.
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All of this is important because Ix may not have as many users as some of the other major social networks, but it seems to have a significant impact on political discourse.
Not only is it a place where certain influential politicians, governments and police forces share announcements and views - but now its owner Elon Musk has directly sided with Donald Trump, a relationship that could redefine how the heads of other giant social networks set according to the next American president.
So what is behind this new wave of change?
Has the demographics of people using X changed in the last year - or could it be the result of deliberate decisions by those running it?
The rise of Twitter
Two months ago, The Inevitable West (Inevitable West) did not exist on Iks.
Now this profile, which calls itself "Defender of Western Values and Culture", has gained 131.600 followers (a number that is rapidly increasing).
According to its creator, he manages to get about 30 million collective views every day with all his posts.
Musk even responded to Inevitable West posts on Ix.
Their recent posts, which often contain headlines similar to breaking news, include a fake video in which Trump tells the British prime minister that he will "invade your country and make Britain great again."
There were also several posts in support of far-right activist Tommy Robinson, as well as some debunked claims about farmers' protests in the UK and a knife attack in Southampton that killed three children during a Taylor Swift dance workshop.
Inevitable West denies accusations that it spreads misinformation and incites abuse or violence.
"The purpose of my order on Ix is to be the voice of the silent majority in the Western world," its creator told me.
He refused to reveal his identity to me while we corresponded, but claims that he is a member of "Generation Z" and that he is "not Russian".
"Uncensored information and opinions will inevitably lead to the US, the entire West and Europe moving even further to the right, as evidenced by the election of Donald Trump and the jumps in the popularity of the European far-right," he claims.
"In the world, this means that corrupt politicians and leaders will be exposed."
He seems to see the rise of his own account as the "death" of what he calls the MSM, or "mainstream media."
This is perhaps not surprising considering that, after the US elections, Musk personally told Xx users: "You are the Media now."
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Time of change: Development of the X platform
When Musk bought Twitter, he emphasized the need to accommodate all political views and resist censorship by the government and the companies that own the social networks.
The changes—among them mass layoffs and changes to moderation policies on issues such as political disinformation—began immediately.
There were also a number of other changes to the nature of feeds, such as the creation of two separate sections: "What You Follow," which contains the accounts you follow, and "For You," which is algorithmically maintained, like on TikTok.
During 2024, however, another wave of alterations followed that seem to have further altered it.
The block function has been changed, which means that if you block an account, you will not be protected by the fact that that profile can no longer see what you post.
At the same time, likes are made private.
The site still has "crowdsourced" community notes that are used to fact-check or refute what is claimed in posts - and users can pay for blue ticks, which were previously shared for free as a sign of confirmation that a person is really who they claim to be. is.
Now, however, you have to pay to subscribe to X Premium and get the ticker.
(There are three subscription tiers – in the UK, the Premium tier currently costs £10 a month).
Premium profiles are entitled to more privileges and visibility – and can earn from interactions with other ticked profiles.
Since October, X has changed its own rules so that instead of basing individual account revenue on advertising, it now takes into account likes, shares and comments from other Premium accounts.
Of course, other social networks allow users to monetize posts and allow them to share sponsored content — which is not uncommon — but other big sites have rules that allow them to defund or shut down profiles that share misinformation.
X has no policy for defunding accounts for such posts, though it does allow users to add community notes to misleading or fake tweets.
And it does not allow "misleading media" such as manipulated or synthetic videos that "may have the result of spreading confusion on public issues, affecting public safety, or causing serious harm."
According to Inevitable West, X can now become a real business.
He shows me that when he publishes about seven times a day, he can make a minimum of "2.500 dollars a month".
He also claims to know of another account that earns "$25.000 every month - that account supposedly has 500.000 followers" and posts "about thirty times" a day.
Has the algorithm changed?
A change can sometimes occur when a website changes its algorithms (or recommendation systems) in some way to, for example, boost or support some posts.
What is not the clearest is whether this is the case here or not.
I certainly noticed a difference in the variety of posts on the "Za tebe" feed compared to those of a year ago.
This is something I analyzed through the "Secret Voter Project" in which I created and managed the accounts of more than 20 fictional characters on social networks, based in the USA and the UK, who reflected the views of the entire political spectrum.
These characters had profiles on major sites including Iksu, which allowed me to see what different accounts were recommending on social networks.
Those accounts were private, didn't send messages to real people, and didn't have friends.
Regardless of the different political views these accounts expressed, I noticed that in the last six months of the past year, their feeds began to be dominated by polarizing posts and that they tended to be more supportive of Trump or the opposition to politicians and people around the world who are not perceived as are on the side of the elected American president.
However, all this seems to be a consequence of the environment and various changes on the wider page, instead of a consequence of simple changes to the algorithm.
Andrew Kaung, who was previously a user security analyst at TikTok and worked at Meta, has spent years tracking how these recommendation systems can be updated or changed.
"What we're seeing on IX is not just a result of the algorithm change, it's also affected by the absence of security mechanisms in the name of freedom of speech," he says.
Nina Jankovic is the former executive director of the United States Disinformation Management Board, established in 2022 to advise the Department of Homeland Security on issues such as Russian disinformation and later disbanded after a public backlash over concerns about freedom of expression and transparency.
She claims that X's algorithms now "privilege polarizing and misleading rhetoric" and suggests that users who post less controversial content have seen a drop in views.
"The result is that a platform that boasts of being like a public town square is actually an extremely artificial environment, a true black mirror of the most problematic aspects of human nature."
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Random influencers
I've messaged dozens of other big accounts, who say they can now have more and more influence on the site, often unexpectedly.
"I never really planned to become an influencer," admits a profiler named Andy, who says he's from New York.
"But I realized that since I already have this platform, I should try to use it to further my own goals."
He describes how he shared the chipmunk meme - after learning the chipmunk had been put to sleep over concerns it might have rabies - which now has more than 45 million views.
Andy compares his own reach to that of popular podcaster Joe Rogan, who has 14,5 million followers on X.
"But I'm not Joe Rogan, so it's pretty special that something I post can get as many views as he does."
Andy and the other Ix accounts I've corresponded with believe the changes at Ix are a good thing, because they now have ranges they could never have dreamed of.
Allegations of bias
Earlier this month, an attack on a German Christmas market that killed five people and injured more than 200 was the subject of widespread discussion on IX.
Most of the discussion concerned the suspect, a German resident originally from Saudi Arabia.
German prosecutors said the investigation was ongoing, but suggested that one potential motive for the attack "could have been dissatisfaction with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany."
Among those who commented was the Inevitable West: "Break into the mosques." Ban the Koran. Carry out mass deportations. Our patience is officially running out."
The account was accused of spreading hate in posts about topics including immigration and religion.
Other accounts said it could provoke violence.
But the profile responded that he "actually advocates security".
When asked about this, The Inevitable West replied that he would say the same thing about other religions.
On another occasion, he said that they would never delete their own posts – even if they turned out to be false.
Meanwhile, his feeds can be seen around the world.
Accusations of bias in moderation have long been leveled at Twitter, both before and after Musk bought the company, along with questions about whether the website previously restricted free speech.
I spoke to Twitter insiders about this for the Panorama investigation that aired in 2023, and they told me that they believed the company would have trouble protecting users from trolling, state-controlled disinformation and child sexual exploitation, blaming that, among other things, mass layoffs.
At that time, Iks did not respond to the raised topics.
Musk then tweeted a BBC article about the Panorama episode with the comment: "Sorry that Twitter has been turned from a caring haven into a place that has... trolls."
He also said, "Trolls are kind of fun."
On a separate occasion, Musk said he had "no choice" but to cut the company's workforce due to financial losses.
Lisa Jennings Young, former head of content design at Ix who worked there until 2022, says, "I feel like we're living through a never-ending social experiment on humanity."
He doesn't have a defined goal, she says.
Instead, in her opinion, it "was not controlled by a social experiment but by an experiment that we are all a part of."
No one really knows what his end result could be, she claims.
Some Iks users tell me they recently decided to migrate to other social networks, among them Bluesky, launched in 2019 as an experimental "decentralized" social network created by former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey.
It now has more than 20 million users.
It is difficult to discern exactly how many real users have decided to leave Iks - or whether it has really grown.
Elon Musk and X did not respond to the topics raised in this article or to interview requests.
X says its priority is to protect and defend users' voices, and that it has hate guidelines, which state that users "may not target others to abuse, harass, or encourage others to do so."
An Xx spokesman previously told the BBC: "Xx has a whole range of measures and features to protect the election conversation." We flag content that violates our synthetic and manipulated media policy, and terminate accounts that engage in platform manipulation or other serious violations of our rules."
The site also told the European Commission in November: "X aspires to be the town square of the entire internet promoting and protecting freedom of expression."
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Social networks meet political influence
Since the 2024 US presidential election, X has cemented its place as the home of political news about the new Trump administration.
Musk endorsed Trump as an election candidate back in July.
Now he has been offered a job in government, as head of a new advisory team called the Department for Government Efficiency (Doge).
Sam Freeman, a former Metta employee who now works as a Trust and Security Specialist at a company called Cinder, believes this will have a broader effect on the heads of other social networks.
He predicts that "they will have to have a closer relationship with the incoming administration," especially if they feel increased pressure around regulation and online security.
Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook (today Meta) and in the meantime bought Instagram, recently had dinner with Trump at his home in Mar-a-Lago.
The president-elect has previously taken Zuckerberg to task, accusing his and other sites of bias.
"Facebook, Google and Twitter, not to mention the Corrupt Media, are expressly on the side of the Radical Left Democrats," Trump once wrote.
Could this dinner indicate a thaw in their relationship?
It certainly suggests that Zuckerberg believes that at least somewhat closer proximity to Trump could be in his interest.
The same appears to be true of TikTok CEO Shuo Zhi Chu, who is also reported to have met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago as the company that owns the social network fights plans by US authorities to ban the app.
The US government claims that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, has ties to the Chinese state.
Both TikTok and BytDens deny this.
The Supreme Court is set to hear TikTok's legal arguments in January.
In Great Britain, the Online Safety Act will soon be implemented, according to which companies will have to commit to the regulator Ofcom how they will fight against illegal content and posts harmful to children.
In Australia, politicians have gone a step further and approved plans to ban children under 16 from using social media.
When all is said and done, however – given how many giant social networks are based in the US – it will be the approach of the US government and the president that will have the most impact.
"I see that Trump's feelings about a platform will dictate how his administration will approach it," Freeman argued.
The question that remains is what Trump's views really are on this issue - and whether he will demand different accountability from these sites in the future, if at all.
The consequences, in whatever direction they move, will undoubtedly be far-reaching.
Cover photo: Reuters, Getty Images
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