The biggest threat to free speech and democracy isn’t speech, it’s amplification

The other day I checked in on Twitter (Still can’t bring myself to say X) and saw this tweet:

About a year ago, Twitter started injecting tweets into my “notifications” stream from people I don’t follow. So, I don’t know Faith Back Rub. Never heard of the account before. And yet, Twitter’s algorithm somehow thought this was one of the most important things for me to see that day.

The message I received was “a famous American football player slammed a presidential candidate.” And then I went on to something more interesting in my busy day.

But then I thought about it a little more: this celebrity American football player is usually non-political. He makes millions in product endorsements and podcast sponsorships. This statement seems uncharacteristic. So I went back to the tweet and clicked on the actual Kelce message:

Now my reaction was — well, this is a verified account. Looks like Travis Kelce…