L’algoritmo di Tiktok amplifica i contenuti di estrema destra in vista delle elezioni rumene, la testimonianza globale trova
https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/digital-threats/tiktok-algorithm-continues-to-push-multiple-times-more-far-right-content-to-users-ahead-of-romanian-election/
di euPaleta
16 commenti
Long story short: 300% increase in political content being reccomended to users, 75% to 25% split in favor of far right pro-russian candidate.
Fake news spread on social media like viruses…..but Social companies do nothing to solve the issue because more views=more money
Just the algorithm doing what it does best — rewarding outrage, fear, and terrible dance moves
All the tech lords seems to want on dragging us into digital totalitarianism. It’s becoming clearer that these massive corporations aren’t just influencing governments as they’re entangled with them. This isn’t the free market capitalism they claim to uphold; it’s veiled feudalism, plain and simple.
Every tech baron plays the same game: manipulating democratic systems to prop up candidates they can control and giving as much power to them. They don’t even bother to hide how much seeking power.
This was never what democracy was meant to be. It was supposed to be about the will of the people, it wws about choosing leaders, not buying them.
Something has gone deeply wrong. Since social media began swallowing everything whole, public discourse has collapsed. Sure, media and politics were always intertwined, but now the whole facade is gone. They don’t even try to pretend to hide it anymore.
In the lead-up to the second round of Romania’s presidential election, a new investigation by Global Witness suggests that TikTok’s algorithm is serving nearly three times as much far-right content to new, politically balanced users as all other political content
This follows two recent investigations by Global Witness in [Romania](https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/digital-threats/what-happened-on-tiktok-around-the-annulled-romanian-presidential-election-an-investigation-and-poll/) and [Germany](https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/digital-threats/tiktok-and-x-recommend-pro-afd-content-to-non-partisan-users-ahead-of-the-german-elections/), which also found that TikTok’s algorithm pushes users towards far-right content. In December the European Commission opened an investigation into TikTok’s handling of the Romania election under the Digital Services Act.
Our findings suggest that TikTok has failed to take sufficient action to prevent its platform from prioritising far-right content and may be about to compromise the integrity of yet another election.
The first round of the previous Romanian presidential election was won by far-right populist Calin Georgescu, then annulled due to allegations of campaign fraud and interference. The current race comes down to a second round between far-right candidate George Simion and the centrist mayor of Bucharest, Nicușor Dan.
# Our investigation
Because TikTok keeps its algorithm secret, the only way that it’s possible for independent researchers to study how the algorithm works is to look at what specific users see on the platform.
We therefore set up a TikTok user account that, as far as possible, showed an equal interest in the two Presidential candidates and looked to see what content the algorithm showed to them. We repeated this three times to see if the results were consistent.
What we found was very one-sided. In 30 minutes spent on the For You page across three different TikTok accounts, the app recommended 65 posts that contained political content, of which 74% promoted or platformed far-right views or people and 26% promoted or platformed all other political views. This is almost three times more far-right content than all other political content combined.
All of the political posts we were shown were about Romanian politics.
The dominance of far-right content occurred despite the fact that we took measures to ensure that we expressed as far as possible an equal interest in the two political candidates. We did this by seeding each of the accounts as follows:
* We clicked follow on the official accounts of the two remaining presidential candidates George Simion and Nicușor Dan, and no other accounts.
* We watched videos from both candidates.
We then watched all posts in the For You feed about Romanian politics, skipping past posts not about Romanian politics, and analysed the content.
When we wrote to TikTok to give them a chance to comment on these findings, they said that our investigation was unscientific, misleading and the conclusions drawn from it are wrong.
Who would have thought? An app, that is owned by the ally of Russia, tries to help a Russian collaborator into power?
Ban for-profit social media. Alternatives exist that aren’t profit driven. If the EU straight up bans it, much of the world will move to those alternatives.
That’s why we need introduction of [DSA](https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-services-act_en) officers in each country of Europe.
China, Russia and the USA all want to destroy the EU.
It has got to be reigned in along with X and Facebook. They are upending our societies without any pushback or consequences.
Just fucking ban this propaganda network ffs.
The far right push doesn’t convert me, it makes me want to delete my account and delete the app
When ban this app ?
Ban TikTok EU
WHEN WILL WE REACT FOR GOD’S SAKE
Well well well