As Twitchy readers know, Nate Silver shared a political ecosystem 'bubble' graph showing who has had the most engagement in 2026. Of course, the bubbles are completely insane (it claims Adam Kinzinger is neutral and Candace Owens is on the Right), so we're not entirely sure why he decided to share it, but here we are.
And as you already know, if you're here reading, it's only gotten worse since people started dragging him for this:
These are the Twitter/X accounts with the most engagement so far in 2026. I suppose I had some intuition for how bad it was, but jeez, this is what you get when the ecosystem is broken. pic.twitter.com/zHrS7T0iVD
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 5, 2026
Now, the dragging was pretty bad before ...
Then somehow, the post got X's Nikita Bier's attention and yeah:
Data isn’t accurate. Missing half the network. pic.twitter.com/GLcQZGE8DP
— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) April 6, 2026
HOOBOY.
Silver defended himself:
It's not my data.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 6, 2026
The source is Cluvio, which is linked to in the article. I'd link to it in this tweet, but ironically, that would kill engagement.
And I know that traffic is hard to count. Especially for a private company. But if you have more accurate data, then publish it. https://t.co/roC4uXfEzw
And then he went on and on and on:
Do you think that X is facilitating high-quality information? If you suppress external links and there's no real quality signal other than engagement, and people aren't even getting so the accounts they follow so much as the algo, it seems like this is about where you'd end up.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 6, 2026
Recommended
The NYT published a link to critical original reporting on Iran 45 minutes ago. A good, fair story. They have 53m followers. The engagement metrics you display say they got 94 likes and 33 retweets out of that. Is that accurate? And if so, shouldn't you work on a better algo? pic.twitter.com/CMD8mfQRn7
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 6, 2026
For whatever reason, Silver continued digging:
There's nothing organic about it; it's deliberate choices you and the team are making. And although those choices may have been defensible in the abstract, they're clearly resulting in low-quality content rising to the top. You're a smart dude, you can build a better algo! https://t.co/3npkaKsNrE
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 6, 2026
Bier's reply:
Can you stop quote tweeting without the context? It’s intellectually dishonest.
— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) April 6, 2026
Oof.
In what sense is it intellectually dishonest, Nikita? The context is clear. My thesis is: I think your algo surfaces too little quality. And I think your excuses in these back-and-forth exchanges have been validating of that. To your credit, it's clear enough you agree with me. https://t.co/yQOTzYlQev
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 6, 2026
He's so mad.
Heh.
Take him seriously, please pic.twitter.com/PvT10nKPsu
— The Right King Todd (@RightKingTodd) April 6, 2026
Pretty sure this did NOT go the way Silver thought it would.
Or should.
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