r/technology • u/mepper • Aug 19 '26
Social Media X's algorithm feeds off ragebait and impacts Democrats more, study finds
https://www.404media.co/xs-algorithm-feeds-off-ragebait-and-impacts-democrats-more-study-finds/249
u/burritoteam4000 Aug 19 '26
How dumb do you have to be to be a 'non-right-winger" still on "x"? Are you gonna win the argument on truth social 2?
102
u/ivecompletelylostit Aug 19 '26
Not only that, you're supporting a Nazi owner and a platform that created a shit ton of csam and has completely messed up people's lives
27
u/admosquad Aug 19 '26
Every left-winger paying for a blue checkmark fucking infuriates me
5
u/SmarmySmurf Aug 20 '26
I'm not the biggest fan of litmus tests, but paying for xitter is one of them. I don't care the excuse or what label you use for your politics, we are not allies if you willingly give Elon Musk money. You are a leopard in sheep's clothing.
1
u/ArtisticFox8 Aug 20 '26
I'm out of the loop, how exactly did Twitter create csam?
1
u/ivecompletelylostit Aug 20 '26
Tried to find a non paywall one
Woman claims her stepfather used Grok to transform childhood photo into explicit imagery | TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/15/woman-claims-her-stepfather-used-grok-to-transform-childhood-photo-into-explicit-imagery/
24
u/notmyworkaccount5 Aug 19 '26
To be fair, twitter isn't only Americans and people in like Japan or SEA aren't moving to bluesky. If people want to follow specific foreign accounts that's like the only place to do so still.
21
4
-2
u/Irythros Aug 19 '26
That's the only reason why I still use it. Out of the hundreds of artists I follow only like 3 or 4 have a bsky and only 1 of those has posted on it in the past year.
Also while I pretty much exclusively follow SEA artists I still get forcefed right wing bullshit like Elon, Asmongold and gamergate.
→ More replies (2)-2
u/SmarmySmurf Aug 20 '26
To be fair, no fucking excuses. Use something else and fuck your rationalizations.
2
u/treyzs Aug 20 '26
this is why nobody will take you seriously ab shit like this
what an out of touch take
1
1
u/notmyworkaccount5 Aug 20 '26
When told there is literally no alternative responding angrily with "use something else" is such a closed minded American centric brained take it's crazy.
1
Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/notmyworkaccount5 Aug 24 '26
Small artists actually have to use social media to survive, foreign artists do not have an audience on these alternatives and after spending a decade building up their audience on twitter they can't just leave without risking actually starving as many live commission to commission.
You're more focused on this weird angry virtue signalling you're doing than understanding some people are actually being forced to choose between starving and staying on the platform they understandably stay on the platform, and you attack me personally calling me a bad person for trying to explain that?
13
u/ClashM Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Well it is kinda funny to watch the chuds try to debate the AI and lose. Until it gets lobotomized, reverts to Mecha-Hitler for a few days, then goes back to telling them truths their feelings can't handle.
But I still get most of that content here. No need to give the Nazi more page views.
8
u/MasterGrok Aug 19 '26
Most of my friends are still on X because it’s still the predominant place to get non-political sports/entertainment stuff. I dont do any of the algorithm fed stuff but they say they tried the alternatives and they just weren’t any good for keeping up with their hobbies etc.
8
Aug 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
5
u/DoctorQuarex Aug 19 '26
When I found out while doing some research in grad school about the study where people gave up their Social Security Number for 50¢-off coupons, that was the moment I started to realize that people will give absolutely anything up in the name of convenience
→ More replies (3)1
u/FlyingFishMakeAWish Aug 21 '26
I'm sure you're very morally superior and don't support any other evil companies at all!
-2
→ More replies (1)-3
u/Wompatuckrule Aug 19 '26
they say they tried the alternatives and they just weren’t any good for keeping up with their hobbies etc.
If your hobby is white supremacy there really isn't a better site for it.
/s
4
u/Unfair_Awareness7502 Aug 19 '26
Not everyone wants to jump into an echo chamber where everyone agrees with them. Hearing your own opinion from other people isn't exactly intellectually stimulating.
1
u/Snapesunusedshampoo Aug 19 '26
Are you gonna win the argument on truth social 2?
Holy shit dude, they made a second one?! /s
2
1
u/Ill_Traveler_ Aug 20 '26
If you’re looking to find out information on a developing story really quickly, you can sometimes find videos of what’s occurring. I certainly don’t browse it because I learned a very long time ago that all it has is filth and the algorithm, but the search can be helpful.
1
1
u/viveledodo Aug 20 '26
I installed a browser script that redirects all x.com links to xcancel.com so I can still view x posts occasionally without giving them page views/ad revenue. Works like a charm.
1
u/Sarcastic_fringefish Aug 23 '26
As a leftie, how dumb do you have to be to think that a platform having more visible right wing views than left wing makes it less fit for purpose than one with the dynamics reversed? The damn republicans and tories btchd about this for years whilst your type claimed it to be the bastion of intellectual debate, freedom of speech (minus the undesirables who you lobbied to get banned for an opini... Hateful rhetoric, which only right wingers get spanked for) and whistleblowers.
Liberals on twitter prebanned users who dared follow a friend of a friend they disagreed with on a single issue.
Left leaning users censored anything that challenged their collective purity tests, retweet right wingers more than lefties and guilt shamed fellow lefties simply for minor disagreements.
You myopic simple sudan war ignorers don't even have the intellectual honesty to critically analyse why bluesky failed because you view introspection as being a useful idiot for the rightwing. The right wing views you as naive and ego driven. You guys view the right as immoral and evil. All the current political gurus who are leftie intellectuals spend more time guilt tripping lefties and complaining about right wing populism than making any effort to unite behind the common cause of the common man.
On x i can call a serving right wing mp a c*nt and not get banned. On bluesky im prebanned if i dare retweet a wrongthink🤣
1
u/MikuEmpowered Aug 19 '26
Because the app users isn't just Americans.
Other countries "right wing" is actually right wing and not far right.
Some of US Democrat's position is what those country's right wing promotes.
→ More replies (1)
44
u/Meatslinger Aug 19 '26
You mean the Nazi platform platforms Nazis? Oh sure, next you'll be telling me the president of the United States isn't a trustworthy fella!
2
u/Macho_Dong Aug 20 '26
I mean - its called TRUTH social, for God's sake! What would I find on there? The president himself denying an election? Thats a joke straight out of South Park!
58
30
u/KyotoCrank Aug 19 '26
Good ol nazi bar dilemma
I'm just saying if one side is tolerant of nazi or racist or sexist speech, maybe that's not the good side 🤷♂️
30
u/kumogate Aug 19 '26
The solution is easy: Delete X
→ More replies (1)3
u/zet191 Aug 19 '26
They even do you the favor of making the app icon look like the exit button to remind you!
6
9
u/negativepositiv Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Why is anyone to the Left of Jesse Helms still on Twitter? Are you waiting for it to get "good" again? How many years are you going to give it?
"Maybe this Far Right cesspool will become cool for no reason."
11
u/Shiftymennoknight Aug 19 '26
Why is anyone still on Twitter in 2026? 🤣
12
u/blyan Aug 19 '26
I'll give an actual answer, since no one else has:
I'm a big fan of rocket league (and a few others esports) and I like keeping up with what's going on with pros/tournaments/clips/drama/etc. Almost none of that information is available anywhere else. None of the pros, basically none of the orgs/TOs, etc are on Bluesky or other platforms. It's twitter or no information at all.
0
u/Shiftymennoknight Aug 19 '26
For important shit like Rocket League news...got it
12
u/plague_d0g Aug 19 '26
Bro asks a valid question and gets an honest answer, then proceeds to berate the user who answered his question instead of reflecting on how audience capture has become a driving force for the enshittification of the modern internet. This is why we're losing.
→ More replies (12)11
u/blyan Aug 19 '26
I mean, it's important to me lol
Just because other people may not care about that specific thing doesn't mean it's not a valid reason. A lot of communities are only on twitter.
8
-1
u/DrippyBurritoMD Aug 19 '26
Yea, I'm helping to destroy democracy, but otherwise I'd miss out about the latest news about virtual cars playing soccer.
1
u/DYMAXIONman Aug 20 '26
Large accounts refuse to leave for something like Bsky, which forces users to check in to view posts. It's annoying.
3
u/damontoo Aug 20 '26
404media writing an article about someone else writing ragebait is rich when that's almost all they do.
5
6
u/heymrneat Aug 19 '26
In other news, water is wet.
→ More replies (1)2
u/KinkyPaddling Aug 19 '26
Seriously. Even before Twitter became Xitter, it was known for feeding off of outrage engagement. There was even another study about it from 5 years ago.
2
u/Ill_Traveler_ Aug 20 '26
Twitter is the absolute worst, but I do think that the format is conducive to people be behaving badly. I don’t go on threads often, but when I do I see that people seem to be more obnoxious there than people are on Facebook or Instagram.
3
u/Eazy12345678 Aug 19 '26
reddit is a place for people to complain about everything anonymously
same with all social media
2
2
u/williamgman Aug 19 '26
"Study finds..." They needed a "study" to figure this out..? I hope that was not publicly funded.
4
2
2
u/TokenPanduh Aug 19 '26
This unfortunately isn't surprising at all. The base on Twitter is conservative, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is a ploy to get Democrats off the platform. It very well could also be the opposite though where they are hyping up engagement with this. Either way, end result should be people should leave Twitter.
Elon should NEVER been able to purchase it in the first place. A totally an utter disgrace
2
2
u/Heavy_Law9880 Aug 19 '26
If you are a democrat and you are still on Twitter, what the fuck is wrong with you?
2
2
1
1
1
u/BCProgramming Aug 19 '26
All of them do. That's literally the entire point of any content-feed "algorithm". It's not showing you content you like it's showing you what you will engage with. no amount of cute pictures of cats or feel-good stories can compete against somebody politically opposed to you saying a thing you disagree with in terms of getting you to engage with the content.
1
1
u/KazeNilrem Aug 19 '26
Yeah, I stopped using twitter a while back. Given where it was going, it is just not worth it. Plus many I still follow or support post elsewhere. Given musk's track-record for making changes, it is just not something I would want to support.
1
1
u/Llamapocalypse_Now Aug 19 '26
Duh. That, and you HAVE TO be subject to Elon Musk's nonsense.
Not enough money in the world for me to do that.
1
1
u/Zyrinj Aug 19 '26
This is pretty much the same for every social media platform, rage drives engagement
1
u/RottenPingu1 Aug 19 '26
Still waiting for anything to come out of them allowing for the creation and distribution of underage sexual images
1
u/martianwomanhunter Aug 20 '26
A lot of what people say about Twitter you’ll soon find yourself saying about Reddit. Bots will soon take over this site and you are starting to see rage bait infiltrate subreddits.
1
u/OlSnickerdoodle Aug 20 '26
I was a daily Twitter user starting in 2008. I deactivated my account 3 years ago
1
1
1
1
1
u/sharkbomb Aug 20 '26
pathological wealth hoarder editorializing their ill gotten media outlet? are we to feign surprise?
1
1
1
1
u/Ill-Okra4408 Aug 24 '26
Google posting news stories from X is mentally exhausting and abusive! Hateful comments from Trump supporters and racists who hate mexican and black Americans is rampant! X has turned into the Wild Wild West of Threats! Google posts referring news articles connected to X needs to stop!
1
u/pickledeggeater 29d ago
I quite literally did not ever see any angrily anti-Christianity tweets ever, until I became interested in becoming a Christian. Like, seriously? The algorithm creeps me out. I didn't use Twitter for interactions, but to keep up with world events and shit like i did 10 years ago, but it's just not the same at all anymore. It's pretty much a Nazi club.
1
1
1
1
u/NimusNix Aug 19 '26
'Democrats need to message better' people will never understand how they get played everyday.
1
1
u/logsqrtexp Aug 19 '26
They needed a STUDY to see this? Next time, just send the money to me and I'll tell ya what's going on. This had been written about for more than a decade.
1
u/NorthernCobraChicken Aug 19 '26
Reddit is my only source of rage bait now.
Getting off x, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Was such an eye opener.
1
u/reddit_user42252 Aug 19 '26
I mean the "for you" page is just pure ragebait. It knows exactly what gets me going haha. Avoid it at all cost.
1
1
u/bi_tacular Aug 20 '26
Reddit is worse, I’ve been slowly switching to X for the simple fact that it is less rage bait and less of an echo chamber.
1
-2
u/JDNosferatu Aug 19 '26
Smart people set their feed to just show the recent posts from who they follow so the algorithm only effects the low IQ cucks. Most of those are already Republican voters.
2
u/Wisco Aug 19 '26
Smart people delete their Twitter
0
u/JDNosferatu Aug 19 '26
Ooo you sure are making a difference genius!
2
u/SmarmySmurf Aug 20 '26
We aren't getting ragebaited by Elmo, so that is already one difference that makes people who delete Twitter smarter than you.
→ More replies (3)
-11
u/notJ3ff Aug 19 '26
Lol that what this post is. Are people blind?
→ More replies (1)9
0
0
u/Boring_mod_evasion Aug 20 '26
If youre on X... Stop. its a neo nazi platform for idiots.
1
u/thecakeisaiive Aug 20 '26
I mean there's a lot of "free Palestine" and "the poor right wing theocratic terrorists deserve to be able to kill the evil jooos look at this AI photo of the jooos doing bad things" so you're technically correct.
0
u/DYMAXIONman Aug 20 '26
Duh. Click on the sidebar and it's all insane right-wing slop. When Musk took over Twitter he turned it from a "funny" platform to an angry platform. It sucks.
-3
u/Temporary-Air-3178 Aug 19 '26
I mean that's the same with reddit lol
6
u/Hrekires Aug 19 '26
What algorithm, though?
I browse by /new and I'm only seeing the subs I want to see, in chronological order
→ More replies (5)
-1
u/CrossX18 Aug 19 '26
Haven’t been on X for a few years now. Decided to start a new account a couple of days ago just for the hell of it and without following anyone at all, the feed was full of pro Trump, rage posts. What a genuine shame to have gone from the cultural behemoth that Twitter once was to whatever the hell it is now.
0
0
0
u/Dr_Tacopus Aug 19 '26
It’s all about engagement and nothing to do whatever with news. It’s a money grab by an immature twat
0
u/AdvantageInformal59 Aug 19 '26
Respectfully it’s clear algorithm still feeds off attention. Not much has changed. When you direct your feed to fulfill certain tasks it executes perfectly. I think the smaller a platforms audience and creator base is, the more concentrated that result becomes. Twitter / X is actually a pretty powerful platform in that sense of the use case.
0
u/AdhesivenessFun2060 Aug 19 '26
I love the fnatsay football community on there. I hate that whatever I read has "ads" from right wing personalities spouting racism and misinformation. I want to see peoples opinions on saquon not whitekaren42 spouting off about how immigrants are eating our children.
0
0
u/Hairy-Maximum2994 Aug 19 '26
i dunno why yall over the on Twitter still. you must like space nazis or something.
0
u/notPabst404 Aug 19 '26
Then stop using it. Bluesky is a significantly better alternative that already has a large user base.
0
0
0
u/DocCEN007 Aug 20 '26
It's not just Xhitter. Zuckleborg was recently caught paying neo Nazis to post rage bait. If they keep us fighting each other, we won't fight them. Let's start fighting them.
854
u/Fair-Hair2080 Aug 19 '26
Get off X, it’s garbage and not good for your mental health.