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ausdoc . com . au 14 MARCH 2025
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“ The final straw was that Musk turned X into his personal megaphone , and it quickly became overtly political , ideological and sinister — for example , not being able to block people fully so the creeps could still breathe down your neck .”
The algorithm
The all-important Twitter algorithm , according to Twitter , is engineered to distil 500 million Tweets posted each day to stick on the user ’ s feed .
Put another way , it contains the set of instructions that determine the form of reality ( or otherwise ) of the user ’ s world once they journey through the mystic portal .
This distillation , of course , is simply intended to reflect the interests of users based on their own behaviour on the platform , a mechanism nothing more insidious than to give the customer what they want .
But the exact workings of the algorithm are like Kentucky Fried Chicken ’ s herbs and spices , the Coca-Cola recipe and the Wizard of Oz before Dorothy opens the curtains — a mystery .
A couple of years ago , given the controversy surrounding its activities , Musk released the algorithm for public viewing .
Associate Professor Tauel Harper , from the Murdoch University School of Media and Communication in Perth , is sceptical of the insights this gesture to the open society offered .
“ Yes , they have provided the code repository for the machine learning models they use , but that is like showing people the mixer you used to bake the cake , instead of the cake itself , to explain what the cake is like .
“ If you do not have the data ( the ingredients ), you cannot really tell what they are doing with it , and they will be using humans to check how the machine learning is progressing , to make ‘ corrections ’ and provide feedback to that process .”
Artificial intelligence
There is an added complication now with the addition of an AI chatbot called Grok . Professor Harper says Grok has compounded the explosion of misinformation produced by bots after content moderation by X employees was replaced by community fact-checking by platform users .
This has skewed the platform towards Musk ’ s world view , which put briefly is that “ oligarchs and engineers are the saviours of the world ”, says Professor Harper .
“ Grok ’ s issue with hallucinations around misinformation is also compounded by the fact that it draws its answers from the corpus of all X tweets ,” he adds .
“ That means , even as an average , it will be producing answers that X users believe are true or answers that bots have proliferated , not what is true .
“ Grok ’ s algorithm has been trained by X employees — again , giving rise to biases . And then , no-one knows how they have weighted the value of particular posts and profiles .
“ I would not be surprised if what Musk thinks is given more weight than others in determining Grok ’ s answers .”
Professor Harper says Musk overpaid for the platform two years ago .
“ I am not surprised he is seeking to make his investment work for him .
“ Now , whether his removal of in-house content moderation was a money-saving measure or an intentional attempt to disrupt public information , the effect is that the platform cannot be trusted .
“ Really , the state of social media is a mess and the most pressing issue facing democracy at this time ,” Professor Harper says .
He points to political theorist Hannah Arendt , who spent her intellectual life exploring the corruption of the public realm and its consequences , not least the way open societies mutate into authoritarian regimes .
As she stated : “ The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be
accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie , but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world — and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end — is being destroyed .”
Politics and controversy
But X has become part of the town square . It is a forum populated ( and these are estimates ) by 580 million users and is widely used by institutions , governments and ( obviously ) political rulers .
It is not just the communication machinery for US President Donald Trump ( 101 million followers ) but for leaders like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ( 105 million followers ), whose dealings with democracy have also been subject to much debate . X is a deeply political space where power declares its intent .
And it also remains a space where the medical community , whose values are rooted in transparency and openness , can communicate with the wider world , unpicking the charlatans , the phonies and the quacks who bastardise the language and concepts of medical science to push their delusions .
‘ The state of social media is a mess and the most pressing issue facing democracy at this time .’
‘ The town square has been infiltrated by thuggery .’
— Professor Karen Price
FAIRFAX
The shonky research underpinning the wonders of ivermectin as a COVID-19 cure ? Belle Gibson , the fake cancer survivor spruiking diet and healthy living as a cure for cancer ? Doctors then and now can be found on X posting about it .
And the human biology that explains how and why vaccines work , the bit that the anti-vaxxers also attempt to distort , you can find the scientists to explain it through the X platform . And that is why , for many , walking away and leaving the misinformation unchallenged is a bad idea .
Professor Price was one of the first GPs to understand the power of social platforms , co-founding the Facebook group GPs Down Under .
Now with some 11,000 followers signed up , it is an attempt to overcome the isolation experienced by many within the specialty , to forge a sense of professional solidarity and shared experiences that can be more easily secured by doctors in the hospital system .
And she has also been a voice on X . She is the first to admit the stresses of dealing with trolls . She says she felt seriously unsafe when she received emails following her posts suggesting “ she should be hung ” or sent to “ Nuremberg Prison ”. But she believes in X ’ s importance . “ When I joined a decade ago , it was like being an editor of your own paper or journal . You could follow the account of individual experts or those of medical publications and organisations , and the updates on the topics that interested you would flow in .”
The first turning point for X ’ s transition was the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election , she believes .
‘ Someone had loaded the algorithm against me .’
— Professor Trish Greenhalgh
“ And with that polarisation came what I would call ideological prisons , where people started saying , ‘ If you ’ ve got a different opinion , you are a bad person ,’ which is completely flawed logic .
“ The irony was that this was not at all what we were experiencing in the medical community , where there was dialogue and you could change your opinion as a result of the evidence as it emerged .”
Associate Professor Tauel Harper .
Professor Price says elements of the social platform have become deplorable under Musk ’ s ownership .
“ The town square has been infiltrated by thuggery .” But she is staying . She knows her posts are not changing the minds of deep conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers , but there are lurkers who are trying to make up their minds .
“ It is my medical duty to provide the right medical information .”
Professor Price points out that social media is monitored by political advisers , who ultimately influence political decisions that affect lives .
“ I know that the political advisers for healthcare are on X and are monitoring the media . They get a daily read of what has been said by whom and what it is about in general , particularly healthcare leaders .
“ So it is important for us to be there . It is important for us to help shape some of the discourse .
“ I think GPs have got so much on their plate . I am not going to apply a moral obligation through them . But they are a pillar of the community , and they need to be mindful of their professional obligations .
“ If you look at the Hippocratic oath , we have had a respected role in knowledge brokering for a long time , and that is what we do .”