AG Report 4.24.2025
New York Times Turns Hateful Conspiracy Accounts into Victims for anti-Musk Narrative
I understand that it’s easy for reporters to fall for narratives, but it takes a special level of laziness and dishonesty to try to frame three of the most hateful and conspiracy-prone accounts on X as victims just to push a preferred narrative. Yet that’s exactly what The New York Times did with a story titled “They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed.” The entire story centers around three accounts (a small sample size is already a red flag) and claims these accounts had their reach substantially diminished because they disagreed with Elon Musk about H-1B visas. Now, that’s certainly the narrative those three extremely hateful accounts want to paint, but even basic research would have told a different story.
NYT Narrative: Three accounts criticized Musk and had their engagement plummet.
Reality: These three hateful accounts were part of a purge from the premium program for various violations. The neo-Nazi Loupis account is one of the largest sources of misinformation on X and crosses the line on hateful conduct almost daily. Loomer had her premium access suspended for doxxing a private address. Shoyer is also a constant source of conspiracies. Their engagement dropped significantly when they lost their premium access because ForYou promotion is directly tied to premium access. There is little evidence that their loss of premium access had anything to do with the H-1B debate, instead of their own ToS violations, but the reporter in this case was so set on his narrative that he didn’t even bother checking why they lost their access. To prove the point, in each instance, the loss of engagement was directly correlated to their loss of premium access, and Loomer’s engagement returned after she regained that access in February.
This research would have been apparent with 15 minutes of research, but the reporter in this case was too enamored with the idea of writing an article about how Musk took away their engagement for disagreeing with him. So much so that he decided to falsely paint hateful conspiracy accounts as victims.
Trump Approval Numbers Tell the Story
Trump’s approval ratings by issue reveal a clear picture of how Americans feel about his administration’s various policies. Americans generally approve of Trump’s approach to immigration, but his approval ratings on the economy, trade, and inflation have dropped approximately 20 points since he took office.
Why do his ratings on immigration remain relatively high despite the media’s overwhelming negative focus on the issue?