Musk's efforts to influence who wins next week's US presidential election have continued. For example, over the past three months, he has donated more than US$100 million to a political action committee called America PAC that's promoting Trump. But our new research (currently available in preprint form) indicates Musk may be wielding influence in other more subtle ways as well. However, the platform's increasing opacity to researchers makes this difficult to say for certain. Shortly after Musk endorsed Trump's presidential campaign, there was a statistically anomalous boost in engagement with his X account. Suddenly, his posts were getting much higher views, retweets and likes in comparison to other prominent political accounts on the platform. This raises suspicions as to whether Musk has tweaked the platform's algorithm to increase the reach of his posts in advance of the US presidential election. It also demonstrates the problems with how social media platforms like X are currently regulated around the world....

Political violence is hardly new to America. Since the country's inception, gunmen have shaped its political landscape, from the Civil War to the Ku Klux Klan, to high-profile assassinations and the bombing of federal buildings. Yet the threat of political violence has deepened in recent years and intensified during the 2024 election cycle. At least 400 distinct incidents of political violence were reported in the first two quarters of 2024, a nearly 80 percent jump from 2022. Targets have ranged from a former president and politicians to election administrators, municipal leaders, school officials and even emergency responders. The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly underscored the rising threat of political violence, identifying far-right extremists as the most significant domestic threat to American security. A small number of such groups are rallying on the streets, though many more are active online. In the first half of 2024 alone, nearly one in five local elected officials reported receiving threats. This month, the DHS described the threat of violence linked to the 2024 election cycle as 'high'....

In the days following January 6, Meta, Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch suspended former president Donald Trump over posts the companies said glorified the violence at the Capitol. It was the most extreme moderation decision these companies had ever made. Platforms also took sweeping actions to remove thousands of accounts belonging to militias, conspiracy theorists, and the content they shared that led the US to that moment. After the 2022 midterms, the balance of power shifted in Congress. Republicans now had a majority'albeit a slim one'in the House of Representatives and used that sliver of power to go after the researchers and trust and safety workers who did the dizzying work of debunking election myths. Jim Jordan was elevated to chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee and immediately launched investigations stifling the work of academics at best and launching harassment campaigns against entire moderation teams at worst. As a result of these attacks, the Stanford Internet Observatory, one of the top disinformation research groups, shut down for good over the summer....

For once, the biggest tourist attraction in Philadelphia's Love Park isn't the iconic artwork that gives the plaza its name. While a couple of tourists trickle through to take pictures with the love sculpture, the main attraction this week is the Portal, which was encircled by a crowd of about 50 onlookers when it made its debut Tuesday. The Portal, which stands almost 12 feet tall and weighs 3.5 tons, is an always-on live video feed housed in a futuristic, industrial-style circle, connecting two cities from around the world. A project of Lithuanian entrepreneur Benediktas Gylys, the Portal made international headlines this summer when someone at New York City's Portal flashed the city of Dublin, Ireland. The Portal was shut down temporarily and then was relocated by September. When the Portals project announced that its newest installation would come to Philadelphia, locals had concerns. This is a city that has to grease the light poles when its sports teams are in the playoffs so that people don't climb them; a city that created Gritty, a chaotic orange trash monster as the official mascot of the NHL team Philadelphia Flyers, and the Phillie Phanatic, the most sued mascot in sports; a city where someone will post a Craigslist missed connection to make sure you know they gave you the finger for driving a Cybertruck. If midtown Manhattan was too salacious for the Portal, what will the people of Philadelphia ' who infamously once threw snowballs at Santa Claus ' have up their sleeves'...