Researcher: Twitter’s Algorithm Reveals Government Intervention Tool

Lucas Nolan2 Apr 2023

A developer has discovered a U.S. government intervention option and other insights in Twitter’s recently open sourceed recommendation algorithm.

The Post Millenial reports that on Friday, Twitter released a portion of its recommendation algorithm on GitHub, a website where programmers can share and work together on open-source code. Concerns about possible government influence on the platform were raised when developer Steven Tey examined the code and found a mechanism that permits the U.S. government to alter the Twitter algorithm.

Tey revealed his research on the mechanism for intervention, saying, “When needed, the government can intervene with the Twitter algorithm. In fact, @TwitterEng (Twitter Engineering) even has a class for it – ‘GovernmentRequested.'” Tey also provided a direct link to the code on GitHub for public review.

Elon Musk, who purchased the platform for $44 billion, had announced in March last year that Twitter’s algorithm should be open source. He later stated, “Our ‘algorithm’ is overly complex & not fully understood internally. People will discover many silly things, but we’ll patch issues as soon as they’re found!”

Tey discovered that the algorithm also considers a user’s following-to-follower ratio, with page rankings being affected for users who have a high following count but a low number of followers.

In order to track and compare tweet impressions on other users, the algorithm also promotes Twitter Blue subscribers and groups users into categories like “power users,” “Democrat users,” “Republican users,” and “@elonmusk.”

Tey identified elements that could adversely affect a user’s “reputation score,” such as being blocked or muted, as well as factors that influence whether a user’s content will appear in the “For You” recommendations. Additionally, he mentioned how the algorithm and how candidates appear for users to follow are affected by the presidential elections.

Following earlier revelations from the Twitter files, a collection of reports describing internal discussions at Twitter under its previous management, this discovery of the “GovernmentRequested” intervention option is a troubling development. The documents revealed the company’s attempts at content moderation and cooperation with law enforcement, including hiring former FBI agents and working with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.

The extent to which the platform may have been influenced or under the control of governments has been questioned in light of these revelations from the Twitter files. Several former FBI agents worked for Twitter, according to a batch of documents that Michael Shellenberger made public. At the time, former FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan was the main person behind numerous censorship requests, including those pertaining to Hunter Biden’s contentious “laptop from hell.”..

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2023/04/02/researcher-twitters-algorithm-reveals-government-intervention-tool/

==Hunter Biden spotted outside NYC gallery featuring his newest artwork

Jorge Fitz-Gibbon==

Embattled first son Hunter Biden on Sunday popped up at the ritzy Soho gallery where his controversial artwork is on display alongside a slew of renowned abstract painters.

Biden, 53, the subject of an ongoing Republican-led probe on Capitol Hill, was all smiles as he was snapped at the Georges Berges Gallery — smugly quipping that he loved that The Post’s reporting on his art.

He even posed with the gallery owner, George Berges, outside and shook the hand of a Post photographer.

Investigators with the congressional committee have tried for months to get details on the collectors who have purchased Biden’s works, which have been valued at between $75,000 and $500,000.

William Pittard, an attorney for the Berges galley, fired back at congressional investigators last month citing “inaccuracies” in the gallery’s resistance to naming the buyers.

The “Bridging the Abstract” exhibition opening Thursday will feature Biden’s work alongside prominent artists like the late Elaine de Kooning and Helen Frankenthaler, as well as Los Angeles-based contemporary painter Todd Williamson and Japanese-born East Village painter Hisako Kobayashi.

Additional reporting by Gabriella Bass

https://nypost.com/2023/04/02/hunter-biden-snapped-outside-soho-gallery-where-his-artwork-is-on-display/

Dem-Linked Dark Money Group Is Masquerading As A Newspaper To Influence Pivotal Court Race

TREVOR SCHAKOHL

LEGAL REPORTER

April 03, 2023

8:42 AM ET

A DARK MONEY NONPROFIT WITH DEMOCRAT TIES HAS USED A WEBSITE MIMICKING A STATE NEWSPAPER TO ATTACK CONSERVATIVE JUDGE CANDIDATE DAN KELLY AS THE HIGH-STAKES WISCONSIN STATE SUPREME COURT ELECTION APPROACHES.

American Independent Media paid for Facebook advertising for two articles critical of Kelly within its “project” website The Wisconsin Independent.

“It’s not scandalous when partisan operatives and PACs work to boost their party’s candidates and hurt the other party’s candidates. But it is scandalous when those partisans pretend to be ‘news’ sites,” Capital Research Center President Scott Walter told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A Democrat-linked dark money group has used a website resembling a Wisconsin news outlet to attack the conservative candidate in the state’s current high-stakes Supreme Court election.

American Independent Media (AIM), a Washington, D.C.-registered 501(c)(4) nonprofit with ties to Democratic political operative David Brock, bought at least $90,000 in Facebook advertisements this month promoting two articles critical of former State Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly on The Wisconsin Independent, a media website labelled as an AIM “project.” Early voting is already underway in Kelly’s officially non-partisan April 4 Wisconsin State Supreme Court election contest against liberal Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz, which will determine whether Democrats take majority control of the court for the first time in 15 years, according to NBC News.

“Dark money” groups spend funds from undisclosed sources to impact political outcomes, and 501(c)(4)s engaged in politics can legally choose not to reveal their donors in most cases, according to Open Secrets. (RELATED: Conservative Justice Remains ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ Ahead Of Wisconsin Supreme Court Election)

“It’s not scandalous when partisan operatives and PACs work to boost their party’s candidates and hurt the other party’s candidates. But it is scandalous when those partisans pretend to be ‘news’ sites,” Capital Research Center President Scott Walter told the DCNF. “This drives the public’s view of journalists even lower and poisons honest debate.”

AIM, which does not seem to have its own website, has run “project” sites much like The Wisconsin Independent focused on news coverage in several other states. In 2022, the organization paid more than $300,000combined for ads promoting The Arizona Independent and The Georgia Independentcontent across Facebook and Instagram, while paying tens of thousands more to advertise articles published on The Pennsylvania Independent.

The AIM trademark is owned by the Brock-founded company True Blue Media, which publishes the “progressive news” website The American Independent. In April 2022, AIM was registered at the same Washington, D.C. address listed in a 2020 court filing for the Brock-chaired Media Matters for America, his American Bridge 21st Century PAC and the American Bridge 21st Century Foundation he founded.

Brock was once a conservative journalist, but he became a Clinton supporter as a result of writing a 1997 book about Hillary Clinton, he told Politico in 2015. In a Jan. 2021 New York Times opinion essay, he referenced how he founded the super PAC Correct The Recordin 2015 to help elect Hillary Clinton president, saying, “Like most Democrats, I initially underestimated Donald Trump.”

“Democratic donors have long overlooked efforts to fund the media, but with so much of our politics playing out on that battlefield, they can no longer afford to,” Brock wrote.

Brock is tied to a 2022 print media campaign very similar to the AIM project sites. A print publication called “The Pennsylvania Independent” was sent to about 20% of the state’s households in April 2022, with “The Wisconsin Independent” and “The Michigan Independent” physically circulating as well, according to The Washington Post.

“Independent women are not cable news junkies. They are on Facebook but they don’t trust it. The thing they trusted from the survey that we did was local print news,” Brock said, the outlet reported in October. “This is in the tradition of advocacy journalism. It is coming from a center-left point of view. We are trying to shed light on actors who are standing in the way of progress.”

The American Bridge 21st Century Foundation, which has historically donatedmillions of dollars to the similarly-named PAC, gave True Blue Media more than $1.6 million in funding in 2017, more than $1 million in 2018, and $35,000 in 2019, with Brock owning more than 35% of the company in each of those years, IRS records indicated.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/03/democratic-group-newspaper-facebook/

Federal Government Leaked Social Security Numbers Of White House Visitors, Report States

GRETCHEN CLAYSON

CONTRIBUTOR

April 01, 2023

9:40 AM ET

A NEW REPORT RELEASED BY THE GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE (GPO) HAS REVEALED THAT NEARLY 2,000 VISITORS TO THE WHITE HOUSE IN DECEMBER 2020 HAD THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS “INADVERTENTLY” LEAKED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WHEN RECORDS PERTAINING TO THE JAN. 6 COMMITTEE WERE PUBLISHED IN LATE 2022.

After the Biden Administration directedthe National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to provide theJan. 6 Committee with White House visitor logsfrom the waning days of the Trump presidency, namely fromDecember 2020 to January 2021, NARAcomplied, according tothe GPO report. The Select Committee agreed to accept the records provided by NARA with “birthdates and social security numbers removed.”

Before being disbanded ahead of the new Congress in December 2022, the Select Committee sent its final report and supporting materials to GPO for online publication. On Jan. 4, 2023, it was discovered by a public news outlet that the information provided to GPO from the Select Committee contained the social security numbers of almost 2,000 visitors to the White House in December 2020. Upon learning of the error, GPO removed the revealing document and subsequently replaced it with a redacted version supplied by the NARA, the report continued.

The GPO blamed the“inadvertent”error on a “perfect storm” of rushed procedures, confusion, altering publication requests, strained resources within the GPO, and the sheer volume of supporting materials provided by the Select Committee. (Bullshit!!! No fucking way this true, thats how the committee got into their bank accounts.)

“Due to the involvement of multiple governmental agencies from different branches of government, it is not clear which body is responsible for the breach response. GPO has presented congressional oversight with a breach response plan and is waiting for their approval to act,” the report stated.

Among the recommendations for improved oversight the GPO has suggested developing a process to more “overtly notify customers to review their information” prior to publication, require written confirmation from customers that sensitive information has been “sanitized” before it has been submitted for publication, and congressional oversight that would allow the GPO to take down published material prior to customer approval, the report concluded.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/01/white-house-visitors-december-2020-ssn-leaked-federal-government/

>>18632183

No, just read it the other day

>>18632141

SS will test everything and check everything. If they put him in jail SS will always be with him per Bongino

>>18632058

He never did, but she’s a libtard, she has her “trusted sources”, gossip on twitter. They started it first because they knew the laptop was coming. Show her some of those disgusting pictures of Hunter. Plus he admitted the drug use on TV

Julie Kelly 🇺🇸

@julie_kelly2

Truly remarkable that an FBI spreadsheet containing explosive chats related to doctored/destroyed evidence and FBI surveillance of atty-defendant comms is leaked to NYT.

DOJ insisted spreadsheet was “classified” andJudge Kelly allowed prosecutors to “claw back” doc from defense

https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1642569451282341895?s=20

>>18632317

I’m positive there are no judges, juries etc in DC, NY, GA and numerous other states where anyone can get a fair trial. When the judges make up laws we’re totally screwed