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

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

#101
post #96
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For more anecdotal context, my other interests lean into a demographic/stereotype of an upper middle class pilates/health/cleangirl girliepop. Which from my experience they centrist/ambivalent maybe skew left but not inherently pro trans. I'm not sure this is accurate, speaking as someone whose social circle has a lot of people in that group and who also sometimes ends up on that side of the algo. For various reaso…

I agree and disagree! To clarify, when I say centre/centre left I mean neoliberal and left being more aoc/burny leaning. It is very acceptable to neoliberal, but often not worth the political risk to go further than that and vice versa. Neoliberal isn't inherently protrans, and in general people see trans people in two ways, example for trans women a different type of male(biology) vs a different type of woman(social…

Yeah, we're talking within the general Overton window. Views that are outside of that (and particularly outside a binary) aren't going to do well with the algorithm. (It's interesting to me that you instinctually divide the views on trans people into a binary!)

There are just a lot more secret conservatives in that group than one might expect from outward appearances. The center of the Overton Window is as far 'right' as they can go without losing their audience. I can usually pick up on it pretty clearly, but I also worked in political communications for a while and became very sensitive to signaling and find it a fascinating topic. I wouldn't be shocked if the algorithm picks up on the association and assumes some similarity between down-low conservatives and forthright conservatives and starts serving the latter to viewers of the former.

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

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, even if there _is_ a bias, it doesn't tell us why Because that is a political discussion that will inevitably derail the point. If there is identified bias then the platform must address it. Or it should be labelled a national security threat.

I think this is a valid point and a really interesting question. If that's the standard, we need to regulate all recommendation algorithms. (i.e. put limits on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube as well.) How could we regulate this? I can think of two ways: - Results-based enforcement. i.e., companies are free to use whatever recommendation model they like, but have to recommend content within ideological bounds. i.e.,…

> Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube

Can you provide research for each of these.

Otherwise it's just muddying the waters to act like the bias is inherent to all platforms.

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

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, even if there _is_ a bias, it doesn't tell us why Because that is a political discussion that will inevitably derail the point. If there is identified bias then the platform must address it. Or it should be labelled a national security threat.

The problem is that the algorithms are programed to show people what they want to see OR what the platform want's you to see. If it's orgasmic then this is no different than any other form of organic popularity. Seeing as Trump won the popular vote and the electoral collage, people were interested in republican content. On the same token it's very easy to AstroTurf and claim it was organic. From my personal conversat…

> TLDR: Popularity algorithms push popular content algorithmically

Not aware of any major platform that solely uses a popularity algorithm.

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

#104
post #76
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pro-Palestinian content This is an issue heavily pushed by the Republican Party

Uhh no? Neither party held a pro-palestian position, Trump told Netanyahou to "finish the job" [1] before the election. [1] https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/americas/artc-t...

It went both ways. They actively attempted to amplify the narrative that the war in Gaza was entirely on Israel and that it was the democrats fault despite relatively no interest from the republicans in actually helping those in Gaza. It was a successful campaign largely. This was a divisive issue for more lefty dems.

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

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they want tariffs to be placed on them?

Putting myself in the shoes of an opposing country, a few minor tariffs is a small price to pay if my opponent is willingly tearing its own institutions and governing structures down.

I suppose we can all speculate, but the thesis is unfalsifiable with arguments like that.

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

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was before too, but it was a different guy

The only reason I even knew who Jack Dorsey was was from podcasts talking about him. Elon's tweets show up in my feed regularly, and sometimes are even pushed to my phone, despite not engaging with them and even explicitly pressing the "show less" button. (I also get push notification from conservative accounts, despite being what most of them would call "far left")

Why would you ever allow push notifications from any social media? And on X you can still mute or block individual accounts that you don't want to see.

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

#107
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was before too, but it was a different guy

Well ultimately all centralized sites are someone's -- some person, or some company. The previous incarnation had its own biases and such, but it did try to run a little more like a real company with official policies. The current incarnation is whatever Elon's mood this second happens to be.

Don't be naive. The previous management also used their power to promote their preferred narratives in arbitrary and capricious ways with no regard for fundamental principles and no accountability. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

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

#108
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason I even knew who Jack Dorsey was was from podcasts talking about him. Elon's tweets show up in my feed regularly, and sometimes are even pushed to my phone, despite not engaging with them and even explicitly pressing the "show less" button. (I also get push notification from conservative accounts, despite being what most of them would call "far left")

Why would you ever allow push notifications from any social media? And on X you can still mute or block individual accounts that you don't want to see.

That isn’t the point of this entire thread, though. It’s about what the default is, because like it or not, most people are crazy susceptible and have practically zero media literacy.

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

#109
post #10

And many platforms had a pro-Democrat lean, especially in the 2020 election. Blaming tiktok seems like scapegoating instead of looking introspectively at the Dem's failings like having a weak leader and pushing various insane ideologies.

What insane ideologies do Dems push? That seems like a weird characterization of either party, although fits Trump specifically -- and I think a lot of Republicans are actually afraid of him.

Zionism

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

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a valid point and a really interesting question. If that's the standard, we need to regulate all recommendation algorithms. (i.e. put limits on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube as well.) How could we regulate this? I can think of two ways: - Results-based enforcement. i.e., companies are free to use whatever recommendation model they like, but have to recommend content within ideological bounds. i.e.,…

> Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube Can you provide research for each of these. Otherwise it's just muddying the waters to act like the bias is inherent to all platforms.

People do these same sock puppet studies on Twitter/YouTube/etc. and find biases there as well. There's a lot of literature out there.

Here's a recent study on YouTube from the same author as this TikTok study finding left-leaning bias in US recommendations: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/8/pgad264/72424....

Here's a somewhat older study from Twitter itself where they determined that their recommendations were biased toward right-leaning accounts: https://cdn.cms-twdigitalassets.com/content/dam/blog-twitter....

IMO the interesting question is not whether an individual platform is biased and what its biases are, but rather how we might regulate recommendations given that there is always a risk of bias.

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