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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

#91

Post by AnEro »

azinman2 wrote: post #74
AnEro wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% I started not passing then lost a ton of weight and found out I have alot of traditionally feminine interests. I went from being spat at in the street and almost attacked with no help, to people going out of their way to protect me from creepy men following me. From my experience passing, how attractive you are, and your interests/hobbies are all attached to how well you a treated in the world right now. Trans p…

> From my experience passing, how attractive you are, and your interests/hobbies are all attached to how well you a treated in the world right now. That's always been true for anyone in just about any context.

True but I think it's out of touch to not see the trans part as effecting the severity factor to it. Like some of the first advice most trans women get only wear shoes you can run in. Where in my experience if you aren't enough of those three you'll get chased down and no one will care to help.

I only started dressing as a woman again after I couldn't pass as a guy anymore and learned how to be as attractive as I could be. Which is a common experience amongst trans women

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

#92

Post by normalaccess »

threeseed wrote: post #89
xiii1408 wrote: post #51

It's another sock puppet study: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.17831 Very similar methodology to an earlier study the government cited in their case against TikTok: https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/NCRI-Report_-... There are a number of issues with these studies, one being that the way the sock puppet bots interact with content is not exactly organic. Typically they search for content in a conditioning phas…

> 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 conversations in meat-space I lean organic.

Is there funny business going on? Absolutely, all the time everywhere in every way. Can we say this was funny business? Not without the code.

TLDR: Popularity algorithms push popular content algorithmically.

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

#93

Post by azinman2 »

AnEro wrote: post #91
azinman2 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From my experience passing, how attractive you are, and your interests/hobbies are all attached to how well you a treated in the world right now. That's always been true for anyone in just about any context.

True but I think it's out of touch to not see the trans part as effecting the severity factor to it. Like some of the first advice most trans women get only wear shoes you can run in. Where in my experience if you aren't enough of those three you'll get chased down and no one will care to help. I only started dressing as a woman again after I couldn't pass as a guy anymore and learned how to be as attractive as I cou…

I don’t doubt the severity of the trans experience.

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

#94

Post by xiii1408 »

threeseed wrote: post #89
xiii1408 wrote: post #51

It's another sock puppet study: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.17831 Very similar methodology to an earlier study the government cited in their case against TikTok: https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/NCRI-Report_-... There are a number of issues with these studies, one being that the way the sock puppet bots interact with content is not exactly organic. Typically they search for content in a conditioning phas…

> 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., you can't bias toward one partisanship more than X%. There's some precedent for this with the equal-time rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule) and FCC fairness doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine).

- Algorithm-based enforcement. i.e., there are limits on the algorithm itself. Perhaps you have to present your algorithm to a government agency and provide a proof that it obeys certain properties. But the enforcement here is analytical rather than empirical.

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

#95

Post by normalaccess »

mezzie2 wrote: post #71
AnEro wrote: post #4

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.

I'd be inclined to think it's because trans people are more likely to engage with anti-trans posts. I'm a cis lesbian and I only get pro-trans content, BUT I do get a lot of 'random bisexuals shitting on lesbians' content. I've also noticed that when I scroll away from political posts from the left, it almost immediately tries to give me political posts from the right. The algorithm doesn't seem to pick up that my ma…

Yeah, I doubt that there are enough tags or categories for the algorithm to use.

Big brush, broad strokes.

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

#96

Post by AnEro »

mezzie2 wrote: post #77
AnEro wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say with the reverse being very true as well would largely just make it so once you get anything close to touching the topic it tosses out which ever side they think you'll engage with the most. 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 inhe…

> 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 construct). Where depending on their ideology and their view as mentioned, it determines what trans issues they will come to bat and risk talking about.

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

#97

Post by moduspol »

ikety wrote: post #54
twiclo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can make up my mind. They pushed insane ideologies. At the convention the other day not a single nominee said, "Maybe we shouldn't fund sex changes for illegal immigrant prisoners." In fact they supported it.

You've been successfully convinced that this is not only a primary concern for democrats and their voters, but also that this would affect you or anyone you know in any conceivable way.

We question the leadership and judgment of someone who would take such a position, and refuse to walk it back. It is not the case that we expect our lives to change materially as a result of taxpayer-funded illegal immigrant sex change operations.

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

#98

Post by moduspol »

ryandrake wrote: post #33
eastbound wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why Trump added tariffs on China. To… to blur his tracks. The best action is to do the opposite of what you want to do, so people don’t know what you’re doing. This, or China supports the Dems, and everything else becomes logical. But let’s start the narrative that Trump supports China by banning their apps and products.

Foreign adversaries don't care about political party. They want chaos, internal division, and institutional destruction, and for the moment, that means Trump. If there was a viable candidate from BlueTeam who promised to sow chaos and dismantle the government, you can bet they'd support them just as happily.

Do they want tariffs to be placed on them?

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

#99

Post by AnEro »

mezzie2 wrote: post #71
AnEro wrote: post #4

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.

I'd be inclined to think it's because trans people are more likely to engage with anti-trans posts. I'm a cis lesbian and I only get pro-trans content, BUT I do get a lot of 'random bisexuals shitting on lesbians' content. I've also noticed that when I scroll away from political posts from the left, it almost immediately tries to give me political posts from the right. The algorithm doesn't seem to pick up that my ma…

I think if the algo showed alot of ED triggering content to ED survivors as well then I'd be more likely to agree thats the primary driver and not just an influence.

I'm not sure but anti-trans content/socializing in general is primarily a driver for poor mental health with trans people. Not engaging and blocking a lot of the content is day 1 advice in the community. Also, a lot of anti-trans content is targeting non-passing trans people, which is often full of ways to trigger ones dysphoria and dysmorphia. Like there are keyboard warriors for sure but i don't know anyone that intentionally watches that stuff and most even avoid tiktok entirely because of it

And I'm skeptical it even identifies me as trans if i'm just watching a few trans people that aren't talking about trans issues or experiences really. Where i scroll past much more xyz issue that affects females in particular, when it's trying to diagnosis me (which i think is cause of my health/nutrition interest it trys to convince me xyz is cause i'm not balancing my hormones or its pocs or assumes my period is terrible lol)

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

#100

Post by ryandrake »

moduspol wrote: post #98
ryandrake wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foreign adversaries don't care about political party. They want chaos, internal division, and institutional destruction, and for the moment, that means Trump. If there was a viable candidate from BlueTeam who promised to sow chaos and dismantle the government, you can bet they'd support them just as happily.

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.
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