TikTok disproportionately served anti-Democratic videos during the 2024 election

https://www.psypost.org/tiktok-disproportionately-served-anti-democratic-videos-during-the-2024-election-study-finds/

by CharlesW • 2 months ago

139 27 2 months ago

psypost.org

chomp• 2 months ago

I mean, it’s ran by Larry Ellison and the Saudis, so I don’t think this is surprising. But good research nonetheless.

CaptainNegative• 2 months ago

Does he also run a time machine? He bought TikTok only earlier this year.

someotherperson• 2 months ago

Worth mentioning that Oracle has been hosting US TikTok data since 2022.

throwawayffffas• 2 months ago

Wasn't it run by the Chinese back then?

outside1234• 2 months ago

I mean I think we can expect that from the then Chinese and now Billionaires that own it

blindriver• 2 months ago

Given the fact that the Republicans won, doesn't that actually make sense? More people consumed the pro-Republican content because they intended to vote Republican.

krapp2• 2 months ago

If it were the other way around people would be accusing the CCP of trying to rig the election for the Democrats, but sure. When it helps the Republicans I guess there's nothing to see here.

bediger4000• 2 months ago

That's the media trying to remediate the "liberal bias" r that almost everyone believes, despite stories like this.

hallole• 2 months ago

Good point, but the article does say

"ideological imbalance occurs regardless of a user’s initial political interests"

But yeah, even in the absence of any kind of algorithmic bias, I'd still expect there to be an imbalance for the reason that you point out.

giarc• 2 months ago

It's probably a bit more nuanced then that. You have to look at the people that use Tiktok... are they generally more left or right? I don't know the answer. I would have said they are younger and therefore more left leaning, however, I think that's becoming less and less true.

spwa4• 2 months ago

Education was abandoned. And as people who are old enough know perfectly well, since this show has been played before: uneducated young people are largely extreme-right.

4ndrewl• 2 months ago

That sounds like you're mixing up cause and effect?

N_Lens• 2 months ago

It's more that right wing voters engage with and believe more misinformation and lies as long as it accords with their biases. Foreign state sponsored actors have long been using social media to divide the masses and it works way better on Republican voters, though they'll take any suckers they can get. Also the reason why there's so many Right wing political commentators and pundits, because there's a lot more money on the Right wing side of the grift. Right wing serves capital after all.

ineedasername2• 2 months ago

Algorithms like these typically have some foundation in the same type of vector embedding used elsewhere in AI, eg semantic and other qualities that map to overlapping or nearby latent space will drive suggested content. So, what typically trends on TikTok, goes viral, etc? Entertainment, emotional hooks.

In short, anti democratic content was, on average, more entertaining or emotion provoking.

That doesn't have to hold a deeper meaning on the value of any particular political viewpoint, or require tiktok's thumb on the scales of the algorithm to explain things. I'm not even saying TikTok didn't/doesn't do such things, but that type of interference isn't required to explain this trend.

a_ba• 2 months ago

While I don’t think you’re wrong with respect to the mechanics of the algorithm favoring „engaging“ content. However at the same time I do think that they have the finger on the scales because the media company’s know full well what they’re serving. I bet there’s not a lot of pro democracy content trending on Chinese TikTok the same way anti democratic content is served in western TikTok

concinds• 2 months ago

Anything can be turned into emotion-provoking content. That's circular. It's like saying: "viral things go viral, so if you assume no thumb on the scale, then there was no thumb on the scale". Occam's Razor can hide fallacies, there's no reason to assume that the simplest hypothesis is that there was no thumb on the scale. Arguably it's the opposite.

ineedasername2• 2 months ago

I'm not sure of your reasoning on "anything can be...".

Yes, I suppose, but without elaborating further that doesn't explain why you're taking it to be circular, because I could have given some other description of what trends & goes viral on TikTok and you still could have said "Anything can be can be turned into that."

If we take it in the more formal logic direction you're going though it's all very simple and straightforward, here's the p & q -> r of things:

Algorithms of this sort work a particular way in directing next-video selection towards options with some characteristics similar to what the user has engaged with before. I'll stipulate there are lots of ways that can be done, time horizons and methods of weighting different factors but that's the broad strokes. Take this as premise P.

There are certain things that trend more frequently than others and they share some common traits, it really doesn't even matter what those specific things are, we can take this as an axiom without it being controversial.

Therefore, if anti-democrat content is disproportionate to pro democrat or anti or pro GOP, it isn't automatically thumb-on-scale, it can simply be that anti-democratic content has more similarities to what typically trends than those others.

This isn't circular. It's trending content is similar, anti-democratic content trends more often, therefore anti-democratic content can simply have been more similar to other trending things.

You're correct of course about Occam, but then your bring up that aspect of things was merely expanding on what I explicitly stated in my original comment when I said it didn't mean TikTok didn't tip the scales, only that such a thing isn't the only possibility. In short, it was clearly not stated as an "IIF/if-and-only-if" argument.

Going on to your For "arguably the opposite" final statement:

I think that too needs more little explanation. As-is, it sounds as though you're saying essentially "the fact that simpler explanations can be wrong is potential evidence for deliberate interference". That's a line of thinking when, offered without expansion, steps somewhere just adjacent of conspiracy thinking of the "the evidence is in the lack of evidence", and I doubt that's your intent, but I'm not sure either where that's heading otherwise.

specproc• 2 months ago

A lot of the comments focus on the platform, which is certainly relevant but only part of the picture.

There is a huge industry around political communications, which for some time now has been intensely focused on social media. You throw enough money at these platforms in the right way, and your message comes out louder.

Lots gets done quietly, often outside of formal campaigns by aligned actors.

I think a big part of 24, terrible Democrat candidates aside, was the large quantities of very tech-savvy money flowing into Republican campaigns at the national and state levels.

All this stuff can be and is bought.

hulitu• 2 months ago

There is a huge industry around political communications, which for some time now has been intensely focused on social media. You throw enough money at these platforms in the right way, and your message comes out louder

The point of propaganda is to show you you the trees, not the forest. Remenber Cambridge Analytica ? Do you think it was the last company to use Facebook for political messages ?

Fizz43• 2 months ago

A lot of "left" creators were attacking the democrats coming up to 2024.

0dayz• 2 months ago

Yup, just look at Twitch, the top dog political streamer is a tankie.

guilhas2• 2 months ago

I mean reddit is everyday serving disproportionately anti-republican content

Scrolled homepage yesterday there is "pastor" raging on live stream, which is actor being passed as real. And Trump kissing a man's belly in the white house...

To much fake rage bait, and rage validation content

During the 2024 election people were banned from all major sub reddits for posting pro-trump/anti-kamala content, even democrats. Why would they go to tiktok instead? Mystery

Compared with reddit and yt shorts, tiktok algorithm seems way more healthy and organic

guilhas2• 2 months ago

For example on /r/pics, commenting not in favour of kamala, or being member of a conservative sub, was enough for permanent ban

The awkwardness when trump won and the reddit home page was glitching, bots and people in confusion, and no celebrations of victory since they had already been banned or subreddits blocked from the front page

TikTok disproportionately served anti-Democratic videos during the 2024 election

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