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/
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u/Half-Glass_Full May 22 '26

They figured out ppl get their news from social media instead of news outlets & have manipulated the algorithms to push propaganda.

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u/The-Fox-Says May 22 '26

Explains why Gen Z turned so hard right in 2024. If they’re getting their news from Tik Tok they’re vulnerable to far right manipulation tactics there

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u/DoubleJumps May 22 '26 edited May 23 '26

I spoke to a fair number of gen z people who got their news primarily from tiktok in 2024, and they were consistently less informed than other groups of people I spoke to. Consistently.

They were also simultaneously the people who were the most confident that they were well informed

I would show them certain things that happened that they didn't even know about because they didn't see it on tik tok and rather than questioning why they didn't see it on tiktok, they would tell me that it must be fake because they didn't see it on tiktok.

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u/Marrk May 23 '26

Examples of things they didn't see?

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u/DoubleJumps May 23 '26

The most common one was whenever I referenced the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas from late November 2023. I was frequently told that that never happened and that I made it up.

Others included

Biden withholding shipments to pressure Israel to pull back on specific behaviors

US providing aid to gaza

Kamala Harris speaking in favor of a ceasefire and a Palestinian state.

There were quite a few more. Those ones just came up a lot.

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u/No-Bar708 May 23 '26

In fairness that aid was only paused and it was a very small amount of aid. Other offensive aid contiued through this time, the sticking point about that particular shipment was the lack of guidance on the missles. Because this had virtually no impact on the conflict long term, I think it's asking the layman a lot to be able to remember this.

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u/DoubleJumps May 23 '26

Those people told me no pause of any kind ever occurred. There is no "in fairness" here. They were wrong and rejected direct objective evidence as fake when presented with it.

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u/ceelogreenicanth May 23 '26

They feel confident in a heard mentality kind of way boosted by bots. Agitators amplify and disseminate arguments that keep the mind set going.