X’s Algorithm Makes Users More Conservative, Study Suggests
- GAB NEWS
- 23 hours ago
- 2 min read
X’s algorithmic feed—which, since the study was completed in 2023, is now the default setting on X—pushed the subjects in the study toward conservative opinions, while switching to the standard chronological feed had no effect on political attitudes.
User opinion on policy priorities, President Donald Trump’s legal proceedings and views on the war in Ukraine were most affected, according to the study.
The study assigned active U.S.-based users to either the algorithmic or chronological feed for seven weeks in 2023, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour.
Users were assigned the opposite feed of what they used before the experiment, so those who had been viewing a chronological feed spent the seven weeks seeing “For You” content, and vice versa.
The study started more than six months after Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, a few months following the publication of the platform’s source code and about one year before Musk’s public endorsement of Donald Trump in July 2024.
It was co-authored by researchers from the Paris School of Economics, University of St. Gallen in Switzerland and Bocconi University in Milan.
“We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media,” wrote the authors in the study’s abstract, highlighting that posts from news organizations appear 58% less often in the algorithmic feed, whereas posts from political activists appear 27% more often.
7.4 percentage points. That’s how much less likely participants who were switched from the chronological feed to the algorithmic feed were to have a positive view of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after the seven-week period, the largest impact across all subject matter specifically investigated.
The authors caution that their findings do not generalize beyond the specific context studied. The experiment covered “one platform, one country and one period,” and the effects “might differ in other settings,” according to the paper. In addition, participants were active X users who were compensated for following feed-setting instructions for seven weeks, meaning they “might not be fully reflective of the broader user population.” Moreover, there were “sociodemographic differences” between users initially on a chronological feed and those initially on an algorithmic one, though they did not appear to explain the results of the experiment.
Social media algorithms have long been scrutinized for their potential role in political polarization, with critics arguing that engagement-driven ranking systems amplify inflammatory content that elicits more reactions, creating “filter bubbles.” X has undergone significant changes since Musk acquired the platform in October 2022, including making its “For You” algorithmic feed more prominent, publishing parts of its source code and loosening certain content moderation policies. Musk has described X as a platform committed to “free speech,” and regularly engages in public discussions around its algorithm, admitting he does not “love it” and saying he’s working to improve it.
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