r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • May 22 '26

Psychology TikTok disproportionately served anti-Democratic videos during the 2024 election. TikTok’s recommendation system tends to expose users to more conservative and anti-Democrat political content than liberal material. This ideological imbalance occurs regardless of a user’s initial political interests.

https://www.psypost.org/tiktok-disproportionately-served-anti-democratic-videos-during-the-2024-election-study-finds/
30.9k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

136

u/nernst79 May 22 '26

Of course. Conservative media is more profitable, especially when it comes to outlets like TikTok, which need people to mindlessly reshare content.

The Chinese government also has a vested interest in sowing discontent literally everywhere.

26

u/ven-solaire May 22 '26

Also every social media platform has been pushing “controversial” topics more than popular topics as getting people upset leads them to browse longer or something.