Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TikTok's algorithm exhibited pro-Republican bias during 2024 presidential race

psypost.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 110 posts

Re: TikTok's algorithm exhibited pro-Republican bias during 2024 presidential race

#2

Post by whalesalad »

Of course it did. This is why so many want it out of the US. It's a propaganda vehicle for the CCP. Our citizens have an IV drip of bullshit feeding them 24x7.

This is why Trump wants to save it. Back in his first term he tried to destroy it[0]. Flash forward to now, he openly acknowledges that it helped him win[1]. He doesn't want to lose that influence if it gets dismantled, so of course he's now talking about introducing a sovereign wealth fund and use it to buy tik tok[2].

- [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/28/us/politics/trump-tik-tok...

- [1] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5042241-president-elec...

- [2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-pr...

Re: TikTok's algorithm exhibited pro-Republican bias during 2024 presidential race

#4

Post by AnEro »

Weird to say but could be a relevant anecdote, as a trans person, that avoids politics in my socials but watches trans creators. I've never gotten a platform that doesn't show me the trans negative politics in my feeds after engaging with trans creators. I find I only get the positive politics AFTER I ignore or dislike the negatives ones.

Re: TikTok's algorithm exhibited pro-Republican bias during 2024 presidential race

#5

Post by duke_sam »

Not that I think TikTok is particularly spotless but this sounds like the result of an algorithm learning what groups will engage with, ie democratic leaning accounts were more likely to do _something_ with republican content than vice versa.

Re: TikTok's algorithm exhibited pro-Republican bias during 2024 presidential race

#6

Post by java-man »

latentcall wrote: post #3

Curious as when I was still using TikTok I was getting pro-Trump content in between my usual communist/worker’s rights or pro-Palestinian content.

Karl Marx gave the proletariat eleven zeppelins, yo!

https://xkcd.com/992/

Re: TikTok's algorithm exhibited pro-Republican bias during 2024 presidential race

#7

Post by aithrowawaycomm »

latentcall wrote: post #3

Curious as when I was still using TikTok I was getting pro-Trump content in between my usual communist/worker’s rights or pro-Palestinian content.

That suggests a clumsy PAC-driven campaign to shove a candidate into your feed, without actually doing anything meaningful to update the algorithm for general Republican/conservative propaganda.

Part of it might have also been the (remarkably cynical and dishonest) Arabs for Trump movement, directly linking Trump campaign stuff to pro-Palestinian viewers.

Re: TikTok's algorithm exhibited pro-Republican bias during 2024 presidential race

#8

Post by IncreasePosts »

Why is it called bias, as if the results should be even? Would we say that there is a bias in TikTok to show interesting videos, instead of boring videos? I guess you could describe it as such, but the term carries an implication of impropriety with it, as if what displays bias should rightfully not display bias.

Liberals love consuming Trump content, maybe even more than conservatives. Sort of like the Howard Stern effect. Because after they do, they can go post on Twitter and reddit about how stupid Trump is.

Conservatives didn't have that with Harris. Maybe because all of her content was so scripted and her entire personality that we were allowed to see was designed by committee, and frankly there was just much less content. Trump would go on a 4 hour tirade about some random thing like Greenland. Meanwhile, Harris was tightly controlled by her handlers, only giving "safe" interviews, probably thinking that playing it safe and not fumbling somewhere would be the path to the white house.

Re: TikTok's algorithm exhibited pro-Republican bias during 2024 presidential race

#9

Post by daveguy »

whalesalad wrote: post #2

Of course it did. This is why so many want it out of the US. It's a propaganda vehicle for the CCP. Our citizens have an IV drip of bullshit feeding them 24x7. This is why Trump wants to save it. Back in his first term he tried to destroy it[0]. Flash forward to now, he openly acknowledges that it helped him win[1]. He doesn't want to lose that influence if it gets dismantled, so of course he's now talking about intr…

And obviously China preferred Trump in office (of course they wouldn't admit it, because whoever China backs helps the other party). The more batty the US is in international relations the more our soft power declines and China's soft power rises. Destruction of USAID was a huge win for China. If Trump effectively controls both Tik Tok and Twitter, huge numbers of people under 30 will only know what Trump wants them to know.
Post reply on HN