https://www.wired.com/story/doge-website-is-just-one-big-x-ad/
DOGE’s
Website Is Just One Big X Ad
The source
code for the new Department of
Government Efficiency’s
“official US government website”
points to X as its primary
source of authority, while
sharing links to the site sends
users to x.com.
At a press
conference in the Oval Office this
week, Elon Musk promised the
actions of his so-called Department
of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project
would be “maximally transparent,”
thanks to information posted to
its website.
At the time of
his comment, the DOGE
website was empty. However,
when the site finally came online
Thursday morning, it turned out to
be little more than a glorified
feed of posts from the official
DOGE account on Musk’s own X
platform, raising new questions
about Musk’s conflicts
of interest in running DOGE.
DOGE.gov claims
to be an “official website of the
United States government,” but
rather than giving detailed
breakdowns of the cost savings and
efficiencies Musk claims his
project is making, the homepage of
the site just replicated posts
from the DOGE account on X.
A WIRED review
of the page’s source code shows
that the promotion of Musk’s own
platform went deeper than
replicating the posts on the
homepage. The source code shows
that the site’s canonical
tags direct search engines
to x.com
rather than DOGE.gov.
A canonical tag
is a snippet of code that tells
search engines what the
authoritative version of a website
is. It is typically used by sites
with multiple pages as a search
engine optimization tactic, to
avoid their search ranking being
diluted.
In DOGE’s case,
however, the code is informing
search engines that when people
search for content found on
DOGE.gov, they should not show
those pages in search results, but
should instead display the posts
on X.
“It is
promoting the X account as the
main source, with the website
secondary,” Declan Chidlow, a web
developer, tells WIRED.
“This isn't usually how things are
handled, and it indicates that the
X account is taking priority over
the actual website itself.”
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All the other
US government websites WIRED
checked used their own homepage in
their canonical tags, including
the official White House website.
Additionally, when sharing the
DOGE website on mobile devices,
the source code creates a link to
the DOGE X account rather than the
website itself.
“It seems that
the DOGE website is secondary, and
they are prodding people in the
direction of the X account
everywhere they can,” Chidlow
adds.
Alongside the
homepage feed of X posts, a
section of Doge.gov labeled
“Savings” now appears. So far the
page is empty except for a single
line that reads: “Receipts coming
soon, no later than Valentine's
day,” followed by a heart
emoji.
A section
entitled “Workforce” features some
bar charts showing how many people
work in each government agency,
with the information coming from
data gathered by the Office of
Personnel Management in March
2024.
A disclaimer at
the bottom of the page reads:
“This is DOGE's effort to create a
comprehensive, government-wide org
chart. This is an enormous effort,
and there are likely some errors
or omissions. We will continue to
strive for maximum accuracy over
time.”
Another
section, entitled “Regulations,”
features what DOGE calls the
“Unconstitutionality Index,” which
it describes as “the number of
agency rules created by unelected
bureaucrats for each law passed by
Congress in 2024.”
The charts in
this section are also based on
data previously collected by US
government agencies. Doge.gov also
links to a Forbes article from
last month that was written by
Clyde Wayne Crews, a member of the
Heartland Institute, a
conservative think tank that
pushed climate
change disinformation and
questioned the links
between tobacco and lung cancer.
It is also a major advocate for privatizing
government departments.
The site also
features a “Join” page which
allows prospective DOGE employees
to apply for roles including
“software engineers, InfoSec
engineers, and other technology
professionals.” As well as
requesting a Github account and
résumé, the form asks visitors to
“provide 2-3 bullet points
showcasing exceptional ability.”
The website
does not list a developer, but on
Wednesday, web application
security expert Sam Curry outlined
in a thread on X how he was
able to identify the developer of
the site as DOGE employee Kyle
Shutt.
Curry claims he
was able to link a Cloudflare
account ID found in the site’s
source code to Shutt, who used the
same account when developing Musk’s
America PAC website.
On Thursday, Drop Site
News reported, citing
sources within FEMA, that Shutt
had gained access to the agency’s
proprietary software controlling
payments. Earlier this week, Business
Insider reported that Shutt,
who recently worked at an AI
interviewing software company, was
listed as one of 30 people working
for DOGE.
Neither Shutt,
DOGE, nor the White House
responded to requests for comment.
