Twitter Is A ‘Political Necessity,’ But Its Biases Are Troubling

The most recent Politico Podcast discussed the value of Twitter in this new age. However, Twitter has a long history of amplifying certain voices more than others.

An episode of Playbook Deep Dive, Playbook co-author Eugene Daniels and deputy editor Zack Stanton talked to Republican digital strategist Eric Wilson, former Andrew Yang presidential campaign manager Zach Graumann, and Aaron Smith, director of the Pew Research Center’s Datalab, about the impact social media platforms have on campaigns.

Wilson explained that campaigns are dependent on modern social media platforms. Many voters use Facebook and Twitter as a way to share their opinions.

“We know that most voters are more active on Facebook,” Wilson added. “So what’s happening on Twitter is primarily performative for journalists, influencers, opinion makers and other elected officials that you may need to win over — or politicians — in order to break through on Twitter. The goal is to become the star of the day. So if you’re playing that sort of status game, then that’s the objective, particularly in light of restrictions from Twitter on political advertising.” 

“What social media does is let folks feel like part of a movement that is completely different from the canned talking point that’s clearly been written by 20 people that the candidate has tweeted out,”  Zach Graumann, former campaign manager to Andrew Yang, noted.

However, Wilson emphasized that social media “is not real life.”

“Voters who are deciding elections are not as active on Twitter as the people who are writing about them minute by minute,” he said. “It is not real life in that regard, but it is an important part of the narrative. It is important to clearly define your goals, and the purpose of engaging with Twitter. Twitter is all about telling a story. Make sure some facts or data points are available to people who are your allies on the platform.”

Twitter may be a useful platform for those who are politically active, however it is known to censor content that comes from right-of center users.

NewsbustersTwitter had 625 instances of President Donald Trump being censored between May 31, 2018 and January 4, 2021. However, Joe Biden wasn’t censored during that same period. Twitter claimed that 300,000 tweets were labeled by the platform during 2020’s election cycle.

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