Musk a social media powerhouse boosts fortunes of hard-right figures in Europe

Rome, Aug 1 (AP) Hard-right commentators, politicians and activists in Europe have uncovered a secret to expanding their influence: engaging with Elon Musk.
     Take the German politician from a party whose own domestic intelligence agency has been designated as extremist. Her daily audience on X surged from 2,30,000 to 2.2 million on days Musk interacted with her posts. She went on to lead her party to its best-ever electoral showing.
     Even a little-known social-media influencer turned politician from Cyprus has benefited from the Musk effect. Before winning a surprise seat in the European Parliament, where he's advocated for Musk, the influencer seemed to have one ambition: to hug the world's richest man.
     He got his hug — and political endorsements. On days Musk has interacted with his account on X, the man's audience exploded from just over 3,00,000 to nearly 10 million views.
     Elon Musk may have tumbled from political grace in Washington -- he stepped down as an adviser to President Donald Trump in May and has since traded insults with the president -- but as he works to build his own political party, his power on X remains unchecked.
     Musk's influence on the platform he bought for USD 44 billion has made him a kingmaker at home and abroad. Among those he has chosen to cultivate are hard-right politicians and insurgent influencers across Europe, according to an Associated Press analysis of public data.
     His dominance, which has real-world financial and political impacts, is fuelling concerns in Europe about foreign meddling -- not from Russia or China this time, but from the United States.
     “Every alarm bell needs to ring,” said Christel Schaldemose, a vice president of the European Parliament who works on electoral interference and digital regulation. “We need to make sure that power is not unbalanced.”
     In seeking to quantify Musk's effect on European politics, The Associated Press analysed more than 20,000 posts over a three-year period from 11 far-right European figures across six countries who frequently promote a hard-right political or social agenda and had significant interactions with Elon Musk since he purchased Twitter.
     Tens of thousands of posts by Musk on Twitter, now known as X, were also collected.
     The AP used the records, obtained from data provider Bright Data, to analyze how Musk's account interacted with the European influencers, and vice versa, and the extent to which Musk's engagement boosted their reach.
     Due to limitations on data collection, the dataset is not a complete record of all posts made by these accounts. Even so, it captured at least 920 instances in which one of the European accounts tagged, replied or otherwise attempted to interact with Musk's account, and at nearly 190 instances where Musk's own posts interacted with the Europeans.
     The AP also analysed records of daily follower counts, using data from Social Blade, to measure any growth in the European accounts' audience that occurred in the wake of Musk's online interactions.
     This kind of analysis is no longer possible. In March, Social Blade removed X from its analytics, saying that X had increased its data access fees to prohibitive levels, making the platform harder to research.
     Among those included in AP's analysis are several people who have run into legal trouble in their own countries. An anti-immigrant agitator in the UK, for example, was sentenced in October to 18 months in prison for violating a court order blocking him from making libelous allegations against a Syrian refugee.
     A German politician was convicted last year of knowingly using a Nazi slogan in a speech. An Italian vice premier was acquitted in December of illegally detaining 100 migrants aboard a humanitarian rescue ship.
     Others examined by AP were an influencer known as the “shieldmaiden of the far-right;” a German activist dubbed the “anti-Greta Thunberg” now living in what amounts to political exile in Washington, DC; and two politicians who have advocated for the interests of Musk's companies as those firms seek to expand in Europe.
     AP's analysis shows how Musk is helping unite nationalists across borders in common cause to halt migration, overturn progressive policies and promote an absolutist vision of free speech.
     While his efforts have sparked backlash in some countries, Musk's promotion of a growing alliance of hard-right parties and individuals has helped rattle the foundation of a transatlantic bond that has guided US and European relations for over eight decades.
     Engagement from Musk does not guarantee a surge in followers or page views. But AP found it can have a huge impact, especially on up-and-coming influencers. One account that began with around 120,000 followers when Musk took over Twitter in October 2022 topped 1.2 million by January of this year. Seven other European accounts saw six-figure increases in their follower counts over the same period.
     Most of the 11 accounts examined saw triple-digit percentage increases in their followers. Even some that grew more steadily on their own before Musk interacted with them saw their follower counts rise sharply after he began engaging with their posts.      Similarly, on days Musk interacted with a post, its account saw its views soar — in most cases, accruing two to four times as many views, with a few seeing boosts 30 or 40 times their normal daily viewership.
     Musk is not the only factor influencing the growth of these accounts, of course, but their rising fortunes are a measure of how the platform has evolved under his leadership. When Musk acquired X, he pledged to turn it into a haven for free speech, declaring himself a “free speech absolutist.” AP's analysis adds to growing evidence that instead of serving as a neutral forum for free speech, X amplifies Musk's speech.
     This shift has given him sweeping power to direct people's attention.
     “There's an extreme asymmetry in the way Musk is able to leverage and shape the platform,” said Timothy Graham, an associate professor in digital media at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, who has studied data anomalies on X. “There's an unequivocal sense when you go onto the site that you're entering Musk's kingdom.”
    
     Musk's megaphone: Bigger than Trump and Taylor Swift
     Since he acquired Twitter in 2022, Musk has come to dominate the platform. His followers have more than doubled, to more than 220 million — growth so tremendous that it easily outpaced the other Top 10 accounts. Not even Taylor Swift has been able to keep up.
     X did not respond to requests for comment.

    
     Musk is X's kingmaker
     Musk's dominance creates a strong incentive for people seeking to increase their clout — or their revenues, through the platform's monetisation options — to exploit these network effects and try to get Musk to engage with their content.
     “People know that he's gearing everything towards him,” said Graham, the digital media scholar in Australia. “They're doing everything they can to get close to this person because he is the moneymaker.”
     Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, for example, has benefited from the Musk effect. AfD coleader Alice Weidel helped lead the party, which advocates for nationalist and anti-immigrant policies, to second place in German parliamentary elections in February.
     When Musk interacted with her account in the run-up to those elections, the average number of daily views she got rose from about 230,000 to 2.2 million.
     Germany's domestic intelligence agency in May classified Weidel's party as a right-wing extremist organisation, which would subject the AfD to greater surveillance.
     The party, which maintains that it's a victim of politically motivated defamation, promptly filed a lawsuit against the move, which Musk, along with top US officials blasted as an attack on free speech. The designation has been suspended pending judicial review.
     The AfD denies any association with Germany's Nazi past — though, in a chat with Musk livestreamed on X in January, Weidel falsely described Hitler as a “communist, socialist guy.”
     The chat has gotten 16 million views. Musk also appeared at AfD rallies and endorsed the party in a German newspaper.
     AfD officials did not respond to requests for comment.
     Musk has also boosted the influence of political insurgents in the UK. Days before British national elections last July, Musk took to X to ask Nigel Farage, the leader of the populist Reform UK party: “Why does the media keep calling you far-right? What are your policies?”
     Farage replied eagerly: “Because we believe in family, country and strong borders. Call me!”
     Such interactions from Musk helped Farage more than triple his daily audience. Farage did not reply to requests for comment.
     While Musk helped boost the accounts of such fringe parties and rising influencers, his interactions did not provide as stark a benefit to more established politicians, AP found.
     That was true for both Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose ruling Brothers of Italy party has neo-fascist roots, and Dutch politician Geert Wilders, an anti-Islamic firebrand who has been called the Dutch Donald Trump. (AP) NPK
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)