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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[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's time to get rid of US social media in europe. I don't care if I won't be able to engage on social media, we'll have european social media at some point getting users. But we can't let the US have such a large impact into our own society, how we vote, etc.

Fuck Elon. Hope he'll burn in hell.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Europe could... come to the Fediverse!

And help host/contribute to it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks 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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks 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.)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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

Was that a confession like all accusations?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

So, and I’m not at all arguing for them here let me be clear, but things like Reddit being dragged in the media for that jailbait subreddit and the Covid stuff causing lawmakers to basically say “hey if you keep allowing disinformation we are going to have to regulate it” is what they mean by leftist bias.

I was reading yarvins bs the other day and that basically sums up the thinking.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I have not found a way to block them as a not-logged-in viewer.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Só musk is getting ready to buy germany

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

seems like a modest purchase after the US

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks 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.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 weeks 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.

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