A report shows how Harris staffers are allegedly organizing to push their party propaganda.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk said his company was looking into claims that the Harris-Walz presidential campaign was trying to manipulate community notes on X in order to push more favorable narratives.
Musk reposted the accusations on X, the platform he owns, from an account with screenshots from a report in the Federalist documenting the alleged efforts from organizers of the Harris campaign on other platforms, including Discord and Reach.
The report showed how paid Harris staffers on the Harris Discord were writing their own community notes and calling on volunteers to vote them positively in order to spread their propaganda.
Community notes were added to Twitter after Musk purchased the platform in order to allow crowdsourcing to determine the truthfulness or falsity of viral claims. Sometimes the community votes up contradictory information and data to avoid misinformation from gaining traction without pushback.
The report however, found that X had filtered out bad actors enough that one Harris-Walz Discord user lamented that they were blocked from effectively pushing their propaganda as much as they desired: It’s because the [community notes] system is looking for notes that get people who normally disagree with each other to agree the note is worthwhile. So a [community note] needs people who normally believe misinformation to cross over and agree that, in fact, this case is misinformation.
The report noted that the efforts were a “gross violation” of the Terms of Service on X prohibiting the artificial amplification of information.
“We are investigating this,” Musk said Wednesday.
Manipulation of X’s Community Notes Feature
The Federalist said that one strategy was to downvote and block Community Notes on X, particularly those that provided corrections to Harris-Walz articles. Volunteers were apparently told by campaign personnel to downvote a Community Note that provided clarification on claims made by former President Donald Trump. Trump’s comments were purportedly taken out of context by the campaign, which implied that he referred to some Americans as “dangerous.” The statement was amended in a Community Note, but volunteers were apparently told to vote it down, which decreased its exposure.
Campaign officials stressed the need of managing the interpretation of campaign posts in their Discord discussions. Community Notes that pointed out errors or misrepresentations in Harris-Walz tweets were urged to be challenged by volunteers. Campaign supporters allegedly received training on how to use the Community Notes function to raise their “status” rating and influence, enabling them to publish Community Notes with greater exposure, using a “Twitter (X) Community Notes Training” module.
Widespread Use of Reach App to Amplify Content
By using strategies to promote material on Reddit, TikTok, and Instagram, the Harris campaign purportedly extended its reach beyond X. The campaign’s reach was expanded without official Harris branding by integrating campaign content, such as memes and brief films, into volunteers’ own social media profiles using the Reach app. Reddit volunteers allegedly created a positive narrative on a number of subreddits by using platform algorithms to push pro-Harris content.
Users used to meme culture criticized the ad for being inauthentic on entertainment-focused platforms like Instagram and TikTok. However, in order to appeal to younger people, advertising techniques focused on these platforms and used humorous videos and meme formats.
Campaign Frustrations with Platform Safeguards
According to reports, platform limitations made the campaign’s tactics more difficult. The campaign found it challenging to get beyond X’s Community Notes feature, which was created to combat false information. Insiders expressed annoyance at the system’s inherent security measures. Campaign initiatives to teach volunteers how to increase their impact inside the feature, however, indicated an effort to maximize their narrative reach while operating within the constraints of the platform.
