120
TikTok’s algorithm favored Republican content in 2024 US elections, study finds
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
120 points (98.4% liked)
politics
29654 readers
1790 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Duh.
The owners of something as valuable (monetarily, at least) as TikTok sure as shit aren't going to support anything even remotely resembling left-wing politics.
Even if they didn't do it on purpose I suspect the algorithm just calculated that right-wing was gonna get more attention by nature. I recently saw a video by an analyst (I don't remember who, so grain of salt, but) and basically right wing generally tends to get reactions by the right and rage or debunking reactions from the center/right-left, while left wing generally tends to mostly get engagement from the left/far-left. Which means a net higher engagement from right-wing content, and since the algorithm bumps higher engagement content, it's more likely to create a feedback loop without the company having to stack the deck at all.
Not just TikTok.
You can squeeze nearly every big brand in there. Left wing philosophy is completely antithetical to big businesses.
TikTok is a great example because it's relatively new and very popular. But the same is true for nearly every corporate/for-profit social media company you can think. And legacy media, for that matter, too.
They have the ability to exert control over the content that billions of people look at every day. You would have to be incredibly naive to think that's a power that they wouldn't use in their interests.
You get extremely cynical, you could even start to question how people are portrayed in art...movies, books, music, etc. Archetypes are often intertwined with stereotypes. For a long time, the bad guy was always Russian. Then they were Arabic. The western patriarchy always prevails.
And it seems strange to me how all the biggest mainstream rappers continually perpetuate negative black stereotypes.
I could go on...