this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
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Recommendation algorithms operated by social media giants TikTok and X have shown evidence of substantial far-right political bias in Germany ahead of a federal election that takes place Sunday, according to new research carried out by Global Witness.

The non-government organization (NGO) undertook an analysis of social media content displayed to new users via algorithmically sorted “For You” feeds — finding both platforms skewed heavily toward amplifying content that favors the far-right AfD party in algorithmically programmed feeds.

Global Witness’ tests identified the most extreme bias on TikTok, where 78% of the political content that was algorithmically recommended to its test accounts, and came from accounts the test users did not follow, was supportive of the AfD party. (It notes this figure far exceeds the level of support the party is achieving in current polling, where it attracts backing from around 20% of German voters.)

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[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 hours ago

I'm getting stuff on Facebook, too. I've stopped engaging with political content on Facebook years ago, and every time I see something, I either block the account or click "Stop showing me posts from X".

It doesn't even look like ads. It's just stuff that Facebook seems to happen to be recommending to me.

[–] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 7 points 5 hours ago

Coincidentally, I just read a mastodon post where someone did a basic experiment to see what kind of content TikTok is pushing.

I was curious what a TikTok user might see if they made a fresh account. I provided no preferred content categories, and did not interact with any video in any way except the skip them.

In my first fifteen minutes, I received:

9 manosphere “inspiration” videos The official accounts of Tucker Carlson and Vivek 2 clips from each Fox News, and tabloids New York Post and Metro 1 “America first” rando 1 Copaganda vid of “cool” new police robots Elon’s nazi salute without context or commentary

(they go on to list other things they saw after this.)

[–] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 5 points 5 hours ago

Pepperidge Farms remembers when Conservatives complained about tech have a left leaning bias.

Was that a confession like all accusations?

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 12 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Add YouTube to that. You go there without cookies and login, and after you watched some random (not even German) vids to get a home feed, you can be sure to find the AfD in there, just because your language is set to German.

[–] aceshigh@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

Even if your content does not lean right wing (true crime/cults/court trials/lawyers, dog videos, craft videos, art videos, protest support music) on YouTube. Occasionally I’ll get a bunch of right wing bullshit all over…. And I’m like??? Then I have to block all of them and eventually they disappear only to resurface again sometime later.

[–] missandry351@lemmings.world 18 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Só musk is getting ready to buy germany

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago

seems like a modest purchase after the US

[–] robbinhood@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago

Well at least there will be a bidding war with China!

I want to put the /s sarcasm mark, but I'm not sure if it's really sarcasm. More sad, sardonic humor but based on some potential truth.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 28 points 19 hours ago

We need to constaly audit algorithmic timelines. There cannot be "trade secrets" here.

It's not like code auditing is some magic were not capable of - its a multi billion industry perfectly capable of managing this task and we have all of the existing tools and frameworks for it.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 24 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

reddit is doing this too, at first it leaned left but recently they allowed more astroturfing from right wingers to swamp the subs, so now they are banning any remotely things that can be critical of right wing views. the reason it leans more right is, because they are allowing so much trump based news like with MSM.

[–] Iceblade02@lemmy.world 6 points 7 hours ago

It's not particularly surprising when left wingers are first movers to other platforms. The remaining people are a demographic where the left has filtered out, and with content being a product of the user base it gets a similar bias.

[–] churlish@lemmy.ca 10 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

That's why I'm here. Reddit stopped being interesting and became just political.

[–] Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml 7 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

And anything relating to gaza the comments are truly disgusting and disconnected from reality. Honestly all Reddit has become a battle ground of 80% hate and 10% people trying their best to fight back with another 10 not caring (in terms of commenters)

[–] DrDickHandler@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

You forgot bots. Good % of every comments are bots on LLM algos.

[–] Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 hours ago

Good point, I do forget about the bots. Sometimes I hope it's mostly all bots, but not so sure.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

its also the place where people get banned very easily, so i had to avoid those subs to avoid getting banned myself.

[–] Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml 2 points 12 hours ago

Yup, lost my decade + old account, but it is what it is, another app to get off of

[–] hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 32 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

All feeds on all platforms are skewed right if not even extreme right since years.

You have to block (far) right channels on YouTube to not get their crap videos suggested again and again.

Add to that the brain frying effect of short clip after short clip on IG, YT and TikTok you get those right wing zombies.

We should really ban all of these platforms in the EU - including Xitter, FB. Allow only fully open space products hosted in Europe.

[–] Randelung@lemmy.world 7 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Unfettered platforms will be overrun in no time. Hate and bigotry are incredibly easy to create and sell.

[–] hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Unfettered platforms such as Lemmy?

[–] Randelung@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago

Absolutely. We're far from relevant so the bot / bad actor influx is probably negligible. Defederation won't protect anyone, they'll just use the major few instances and get access to 90% of feeds. Afaik points and account age don't matter, so bans don't matter. At this point, Lemmy has no defenses.

[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 42 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think it's time we start to acknowledge social media as a threat. They are using our freedom and liberties against us. I really dont know what the answer is here. Shuting down all social media? Doxxing every user so we know we are not dealing with bots? Restricting who gets to publish news? Every move here will take us closer to another dystopia.

I kind of prefer at least to have a saying on what kind of dystopia I want to live in, before the Chinese, Putin or israel choose it for us.

This is just sad. I miss the days in which we thought that internet was a weapon of the masses and not another tool to control us.

[–] redwattlebird@lemmings.world 14 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Perhaps dismantling the social media oligarchy by ensuring that companies cannot expand to sizes where they can influence policies? I'm open to ideas. Social media has become a huge psyop tool.

[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

Limiting it's size sounds like a really good approach imo. Something as simple as a user cap or having to be "accepted manually" like in Lemmy would help to contain the attacks i'm thinking of. They can always still infiltrate, and do their shit, but doing so in thousands of different plataforms would be both impractical and expensive.

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[–] merdaverse@lemmy.world 15 points 22 hours ago

This sounds a lot like the concerns that were brought against TikTok after the Romanian elections were annulled in December.

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-opens-investigation-into-tiktok-over-romanian-election/

X doing it is probably not going to surprise anyone.

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 65 points 1 day ago (17 children)

Legalation banning algorithmic feeds and replacing them with chronological posts from users you subscribe to is imperative to fixing our politics and improving the mental health of young people.

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[–] _LordMcNuggets_@feddit.org 28 points 1 day ago (13 children)

There's a German game called Wolf. Where two people are the wolf and the rest are the villagers. Each turn the two wolves open their eyes and pick a villager to kill, while the villagers keep their eyes shut. Then everyone guesses who the wolves are. If both wolves are caught, the game is over. Almost always, the wolves win.

Moral of the story, an informed minority will almost always defeat an uninformed majority.

I hope it doesn't come to this in Germany..

[–] TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz 1 points 4 hours ago

Fascinating game. You get to learn what amazing liars people can be. The devil really is a squirrel.

[–] przemek@lemm.ee 10 points 20 hours ago

This game is either “mafia” or “werewolves” in Poland. Really fun to play but it sucks how much real life mirrors it…

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