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Did Elon Musk interfere in 2022 US midterm election? X owner admits ‘I made the algorithm open…’
In a post on X, journalist Tucker Carlson said US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez allegedly claimed that Musk committed “election interference” in 2022.
Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter), has been accused of influencing the results of 2022 US midterm election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, journalist Tucker Carlson said US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has alleged that Musk committed “election interference” in 2022 by “changing the algorithms” on X to change the results of the midterm elections.
According to Carlson, Cortez levelled the allegation against Musk during a classified briefing attended by "officials from the Biden Justice Department" on Tuesday afternoon.
Musk responded to Carlson's post, emphasising that he "made the algorithm open source and neutral to all parties," and claiming that Cortez's "standards" construed his program as “election interference.”
Former Fox News anchor Carlson further stressed on a bill that could impose a ban on TikTok, a video-sharing app that is widely used in the United States.
He said that it is not a coincident that anti-TikTok is being debated on the Capitol Hill that would empower the government to ban any social media platform that interfere in elections. “Just so you know what’s coming in 2025,” he added.
Also Read: Donald Trump tells supporters his $355 million fraud fine is ‘election interference ploy’
Did Russia and China target some election systems during 2022 midterms?
In December, the US Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security released a report, stating that hackers with links to China and Russia targetted some electoral systems during the 2022 midterm election. However, the government did not find any evidence to substantiate their claim that foreign governments compromised the vote.
The report stated that no foreign government or agent jeopardized the security or integrity of electoral systems.
Also Read: TikTok ban in US: Fate of social media giant to be sealed by US House today
The investigation found that pro-Russian activist hackers appeared to have briefly barred access to the website of a state electoral authority. According to the examination, hackers with links to China examined both election-related and non-election-related state government websites.
"There is no evidence that this activity prevented voting, changed votes, or disrupted the ability to tally votes or to transmit election results in a timely manner; altered any technical aspect of the voting process; or otherwise compromised the integrity of voter registration information or any ballots cast during the 2022 federal elections," the report stated.
The Director of National Intelligence found that Chinese officials saw the exploitation of some of the polarising topics that gained attention in 2018 elections, such as abortion and gun regulation, as a chance to depict the US democratic model as "chaotic, ineffective, and unrepresentative."
The intel's midterm assessment also discovered that the Russian government "sought to denigrate the Democratic Party" prior to the polls in an evident attempt to undercut support for war-torn Ukraine.
