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TikTok Algorithm Prioritized Pro-Republican Content in Three States Before 2024 Election
A study published in the journal Nature found that TikTok's For You page showed more pro-Republican videos to dummy accounts mimicking users in New York, Texas and Georgia during the 2024 presidential campaign. Researchers created hundreds of accounts trained on either Democratic or Republican content and tracked recommendations over 27 weeks. The company did not provide comment by press time.
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A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature found that TikTok's recommendation algorithm systematically prioritized pro-Republican content on the For You pages of dummy accounts set up to mimic users in New York, Texas and Georgia in the period leading to the 2024 U.S. elections.
Researchers created 323 dummy accounts and conditioned them to behave like real users by having the accounts watch videos aligned with either the Democratic or Republican parties. They then monitored the videos recommended on the accounts' For You pages, the platform's primary feed, for 27 weeks of the presidential campaign.
More than 280,000 recommended videos were reviewed using a combination of human and AI analysis. The study reported a consistent imbalance in the content shown. Accounts trained on pro-Republican content viewed about 11.5 percent more content agreeing with their views than pro-Democrat accounts did.
Accounts trained on pro-Democratic content were about 7.5 percent more likely to be shown pro-Republican content than the reverse.
The researchers stated that Democratic accounts were shown significantly more anti-Democratic content than Republican accounts were shown anti-Republican content. Pro-Democrat accounts received disproportionately more cross-partisan videos on immigration and crime.
Pro-Republican accounts saw more cross-partisan content focused on abortion. The accounts were located in the three states through mock GPS and virtual private network routing. New York was selected as a strongly Democratic state, Texas as a strongly Republican state and Georgia as a battleground.
