Twitter has made public an internal report in which he studies as his platform amplifies the political content of his tubs in different countries of the world, among which Spain is located.
A study that, in the case of our country, concludes that the Popular Party is the one that receives a greater amplification of its message by its algorithms, followed by the PSOE, of the United Can and Vox, which is the least amplification would receive
of his algorithm.
With regard to the training led by Santiago Abascal, Twitter encompasses it in the category of “extreme ideologies” with parliamentary representation and mentions VOX specifically as an example of “extreme right” party in its report.
A categorization for which Twitter has used Wikipedia as a reference compass.
According to the report itself, they have “selected wikipedia entries mentioning the association [of the parties] with ideologies of extreme right or extreme left”.
A report made public on the same day as the deputy of Vox, Manuel Mariscal, asked the Representative of Public Policies of Twitter Spain, Road, at Parliamentary Headquarters on the “Ideological Bias” of the Social Network of the Pajarito Ensuring that “Thousands of
Users denounce having suffered censorship on their platform for ideological reasons. ”
The accusations and the perception that Twitter exerts ideological censorship or who favors political rivals is a constant in our country and internationally.
A perception that, in the case of the United States, grew after Twitter set out to close the account of even President in Exercise, Donald Trump.
A year later, Trump has reacted created his own social network.
The Twitter report ensures that the Popular Party is the party that greater amplification receives by its algorithm in our country with an average amplification of its messages greater than 200%, even reaching 250% in its upper margin.
In the case of the PSOE and the United can amplification is in the 150% environment, although in the case of training led by Sánchez this amplification reaches larger margins.
Finally, VOX would be with an amplification near 125%.
Looking ahead of Spain, the study of Twitter considers “the PSOE, we can and to his support from the Basque Nationalist Party as those who rule”.
Likewise, “considers the Popular Party, VOX and ERC as opposition.”
Among the results of our country, the study of Twitter also throws that the right is more amplified than the left, being the Spanish right, which is the most amplification of Twitter receives from all the studied.
When studying the “amplification of extreme parties” against the “amplification of moderate parties”, in the case of Spain “moderate matches” would be more than 200% amplified according to Twitter.
A comparison that, in the case of Spain, identifies popular as “moderate” and Vox as “extremes”.
Finally, when measuring “exposure of opposition” against “government amplification”, in the case of Spain there would be a balance of equal amplification.
The company explains that in the view of the ‘Timeline’ you can choose between a view in reverse chronological order or an ordered view by the algorithm.
In this second case, users see ‘Tits’ of the accounts that follow but also content that may be interested based on their frequent interactions.
For Twitter, what the user sees in his ‘Timeline’ can be described as “a function of how interacts with the alkorithmic system,” indicate from Twitter.
Precisely, in its new study it has analyzed whether the recommendation algorithm amplifies the political content.
And for this, it has focused on the ‘Tits’ shared by elected politicians from seven countries (Spain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States), which represent “only a small part of the political content on the platform
“.
In its analysis, which compares political amplification in the two views of the ‘Timeline’, it has also focused on determining if there are political groups, or even means of communication, which have greater amplification than others.
And he has done it between 1 April to August 15, 2020 with millions of tubs of accounts managed by the elected politicians of the seven countries.
