Gosh, so shocking.
this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025
332 points (98.5% liked)
politics
19718 readers
3687 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
Democrats could have a pretty powerful anti-establishment and anti-billionaire narrative in the near future, and it would probably be pretty successful.
But only if the Democrat billionaires and establishment get out of the way.
They published a Tax the Rich plan which removed the cap for social security so the rich paid their share, targeted unrelized gains on the top while lowering taxes for people who make less than 100k, and never raising taxes below 400k.
It doesn't fucking matter what their platform is if we're not actively promoting them because they aren't pure enough they will still lose.
How would this narrative get out there?
Or we could stop hoping the Democrats take the lead and force them to follow the people. However, that would likely get ugly.
It also depends on the non-fascist elements of society putting aside their differences and working together, which has historically been a requirement and a stumbling block any time the populace wants to get out from under the oppression of the 1%.
No shit.
Using a controlled experiment involving hundreds of simulated user accounts, the study found that Republican-leaning accounts received significantly more ideologically aligned content than Democratic-leaning accounts, while Democratic-leaning accounts were more frequently exposed to opposing viewpoints.
Does this mean the algorithm was designed to push a republican agenda? Or does the algorithm know that liberals are more likely to watch videos from the opposing side than conservatives?
I don’t doubt that billion dollar social media companies wanted Trump to win and put their fingers on the scale in whatever way they could. But I wonder how you can prove the algorithm is pushing an ideology at the expense of its users as opposed to the algorithm is just pushing the ideology that gets the most views from its users.
TikTok being owned by the CCP and used for their political interests means they absolutely would do everything in their power to weaken the USA and NATO.
Does this mean the algorithm was designed to push a republican agenda? Or does the algorithm know that liberals are more likely to watch videos from the opposing side than conservatives?
Both of these things can be true.
A friend of mine likes to say, a systems goal is what it does in practice, not its design intent.
Sure, kinda like saying, if it looks like shit and it smells like shit, it’s probably shit. Apt metaphor.
I guess I’m just wondering about the intent. Like, is it possible to prove that an algorithm was designed to have a bias vs the bias is a natural result of what people spend their time watching. I am sure it’s the former, but how does one prove that without leaks from the inside.
The intent on e.g. YouTube is to optimise views. Radicalisation is an emergent outcome, as a result of more combatitive, controversial, and flashy content being more captivating in the medium term. This is documented to some extent in Johann Hari's book Stolen Focus, where he interviews a couple of insiders.
So no, the stated intent is not the bias (at least initially). The bias is an pathological outcome of optimising for ads.
But looking at some of Meta's intentional actions more recently, it seems like maybe it can become an intentional outcome after the fact?
I think it's a matter of How Many Coincidences Does It Take
If we're assigning good faith to the TikTok algorithm.
Which - reading that out loud just sounds absurd.
Seen that more after the election honestly
My TT algorithm was about as far from right wing as it could get
If your TT didn't promote Kamala then it was promoting the Right Wing.
It was promoting Kamala. Was also promoting communism and hatred of Jill Stein. Pre-ban TikTok seemed to show you whatever you were interested in.
Yes my personal study came to the same conclusion.
Taiwan's a goner.
Did you see the politics? It made me angry.
Pre-ban/restoration I used to watch a lot of TikTok. If anything I saw very little if any right wing content, and more anti right wing content. Maybe I was too far left and deemed a lost cause.
If it didn't actively promote Kamala the same way it actively promoted Trump then it was biased by definition.
Democrats: "We're going to obliterate your company and hand the scraps to our friends in Silicon Valley."
Republicans: "Maybe we can cut you a deal if we win, so they won't do that."
Can't believe TikTok has developed a conservative bias. Stunning.
Banning TikTok was widely supported and Bipartisan. It is run by the Chinese State and sends massive amounts of USA citizen data directly to China including contacts, audio recordings, message history, and photo library.
Biden promised not to enforce the TikTok ban just the same as Trump did.
Probably not by millions of mostly young people who use it.. The Dems pushing that through in an election year probably didn't help their chances..
It was good policy, pushed through by both parties, but wasnt implemented fast enough to be effective.
Lets ban tiktok! They promote socialist propaganda.
Huh? That didnt work...
Lets ban tiktok! They promote republican propaganda.
Now that should do it.
Let's just ban corporate-controlled social media.
If by "Socialist" you mean the Chinese government then both are true. The CCP backed the Trump campaign from start to finish. Weakening the USA and NATO is a dream come true to them.
Even the Tankie communities here on Lemmy were praising Trump and trashing Biden and the DNC.
You just need to keep screaming "China! China! China! They hacked our elections! We have to stop China!" and either you'll get something banned eventually.