Nate Silver’s engagement chart for X is riddled with obvious laughable errors

Nate Silver’s engagement chart is being excoriated online after users noticed some questionable labeling.

The 2026 engagement chart shows which X accounts are getting the most attention so far this year. While there are the expected names, such as X owner Elon Musk, Libs of TikTok and the White House, there were some other names that users were quick to point out as being mislabeled.

Look:

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

“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,” Silver wrote.

And yes, I have criticisms of pre-Elon Twitter and obviously Bluesky, too. But things tend to get especially broken when you suppress outbound traffic and break links to the rest of the web, as with Twitter now or mid/late-2010s Facebook.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 5, 2026

“And yes, I have criticisms of pre-Elon Twitter and obviously Bluesky, too. But things tend to get especially broken when you suppress outbound traffic and break links to the rest of the web, as with Twitter now or mid/late-2010s Facebook,” he added in a follow-up post.

But people had questions about how he chose to categorize some accounts:

lol Jackson Hinkle is a literal communist

PS: Remember “build your own Twitter”?

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) April 5, 2026

To be clear… you’re using a data set that classifies Fox News as right-leaning and CNN as neutral… is that accurate?

What are the determining factor(s) in the data that decide if an account is Right, Left or Neutral? pic.twitter.com/DBQuwUyzCw

— Chris Gachko (@CGachko) April 6, 2026

Numbers aren’t even remotely accurate.

Account left/right not accurate.

— MAZE (@mazemoore) April 5, 2026

Adam kinzinger is neutral?

— HowlingMutant (@Howlingmutant0) April 6, 2026

Jackson Hinkle is not right leaning lmao

— RiverOaksGuy (@Bowtiedplayer) April 6, 2026

Since when is Jackson Hinkle, actual self-professed Communist party member, “right wing?”

— Anna (@VeritasSola) April 6, 2026

Pop Base is wholly leftist and it comes out in their non-political posts. So that should be blue not grey

— Phil (@RealPhillyP) April 5, 2026

Gonna have to call bullshit on Russia Today being neutral though

— Gary Koepnick (@garykoepnick) April 5, 2026

Uhhh lmao Jackson hinkle is red, Lincoln project is blue.

— TaniaSaidWhat (@TaniaSaidWhat) April 5, 2026

TMZ neutral? LMFAO!!!

— Brittany Rae (@legitbrittFLA) April 5, 2026

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