Content warning: This article contains obscenities and examples of hate speech.

Since taking over Twitter, CEO Elon Musk has used Twitter polls to help guide policy decisions and to gather user feedback. Far-right figures (including QAnon supporters) and users of far-right message boards have repeatedly targeted Musk’s polls to influence platform policy.

Following his purchase of the platform in October, Musk conducted multiple unscientific polls on his Twitter account, asking users questions including whether to reinstate former President Donald Trump’s account, whether to “offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts,” and whether to unsuspended accounts that he dubiously claimed had “doxxed my exact location in real-time.” In March, Musk announced that starting April 15, only verified Twitter accounts would be able to vote in polls.

In fact, there are multiple issues with Musk’s polls. Former Twitter employees told Rolling Stone that Twitter’s polls “are magnets for bots and other inauthentic accounts” and are “designed to be spammed and gamed.” Additionally, a “pseudonymous researcher who posts some of the most extensive investigations into inauthentic activity on the platform” and who “was viewed by many inside Twitter as authoritative” also told Rolling Stone that “Elon’s most engaged followers these days are big right-wing accounts, so the polls skew extremely right-wing when they’re first put up.” 

A Media Matters review of far-right message boards and online accounts of far-right figures, such as QAnon influencers, has corroborated that researcher’s assertion. Users of far-right platforms have repeatedly shared Musk’s polls, asking their followers and other users in those spaces to vote. Often, those users then claim to have voted in those polls.

The Musk polls that Media Matters determined were targeted by parts of the far-right internet and QAnon community include:

• The poll asking whether to reinstate Trump: Users on the far-right message boards “TheDonald” and 4chan “/pol/” shared the poll, urging fellow users to “go vote” and “do your magic” by “mass voting Yes” because Musk “will probably take the results of this seriously” and “bring Trump back,” impacting “the fate of the 2024 election.” In fact, Media Matters found that the link to Musk’s poll was shared at least three dozen times on /pol/. QAnon influencers also posted links to the poll on Telegram, urging followers to “please get on this,” to “go vote yes,” and to “head over to Twitter and MASH that ‘YES’ button.” These QAnon supporters also expressed concern that the yes vote was too low. In response, users and followers wrote back that they had voted in the poll, with some even claiming they used or created new or ban evasion Twitter accounts in order to vote in the poll.

• The poll asking whether to give suspended accounts “general amnesty”: Users on /pol/ and TheDonald shared the poll, urging others to “vote right fucking now” and to “vote yes until every last tranny dies from a heart attack,” and QAnon influencers called for followers to “vote ‘yes’” or get someone to do so “if you have a Twitter account or know someone who does” because “Anons need to be reinstated on Twitter.” (The Proud Boys also urged followers to “rock the vote” while sharing the link.) In response, some said they voted, including some with newly created accounts, while some others said they could not vote because they themselves were banned from Twitter but encouraged others to do so.

• The polls asking when to unsuspend reporters who supposedly doxxed Musk’s location: Far-right message board users who posted links to the polls told others they knew “what to do” and to “vote to keep the leftist f-----s suspended” (using an anti-LGBTQ slur), and QAnon supporters also shared links, saying they wanted to “unleash the army of frogs.”

• The poll asking whether Musk should step down as Twitter’s head: The poll’s link was shared on /pol/ at least two dozen times, according to Media Matters’ review, with users calling for the message board to “make sure ‘no’ wins” because “Elon makes it so much more fun” and to “make thunderfoot, the libs, Jews, shills, and unironic Elon haters seethe.” Users wrote that “troll master” Musk “needs you” and that a yes vote was in “support” of “free speech.” Other far-right message board users and QAnon supporters also called for users to vote and to “share this shit” in order to stop “the libs.”

Media Matters’ review also found that some far-right accounts, message board users, and some in the QAnon community had also shared links for Musk polls about whether advertisers should support “freedom of speech” or “political ‘correctness’” and whether Musk should “stay out of politics.”

Musk has reinstated dozens of extremist and misinformation-peddling accounts on Twitter — some of which have since spread misinformation that then gained traction — and interacted with far-right accounts hundreds of times, including boosting a previously banned QAnon influencer dozens of times. He has also fired content moderation staff and weakened enforcement policies against misinformation on Twitter, and the platform has lost hundreds of millions in advertising revenue.