X's Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds (404media.co)
- Reference: 0185053548
- News link: https://politics.slashdot.org/story/26/08/19/1623200/xs-algorithm-feeds-off-ragebait-and-impacts-democrats-more-study-finds
- Source link: https://www.404media.co/xs-algorithm-feeds-off-ragebait-and-impacts-democrats-more-study-finds/
> X's algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just [1]published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper, titled Value misalignment of X's feed algorithm is a reflection of value tensions in engagement, found that the site's algorithm prioritized engagement above all else when it generated a user's For You Page. It also showed that X [2]serves more ragebait to people who say they are Democrats , although the exact reason for that is unclear.
"In 2026 that's maybe not the most surprising headline ever," Ziv Epstein, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, and co-author of the paper, told 404 Media. "So we actually dug in a little deeper to figure out why this is actually happening, and it turns out that X's feed algorithm, like a lot of these social media algorithms, is optimized for engagement [but] it turns out that not all types of engagement are considered equally."
The researchers found that X's algorithm can push users toward content that conflicts with their stated values, especially when they reply to posts that anger or provoke them. Although replies accounted for just 6.8% of interactions, they appeared to carry disproportionate weight: "It's this feedback loop of outrage baiting. The algorithm learns that you get outraged and then continues to serve more content in that direction," said Epstein.
It's unclear why X seems to serve ragebait to Democrats more often than Republicans. 404 Media speculates that it may be because there's more rightwing content on X overall or that Democrats tend to engage with posts they disagree with more often. "There might be some kind of differential effects on information diets there, or it might be something more psychological about how different you know partisan identities are triggering different kinds of actions and reactions, but ultimately I don't want to speculate too much," said Epstein.
X's former product chief Nikita Bier confirmed that the site had been set to favor replies. "This is no longer true," Bier said in [3]a post on X. "The largest contributor of seeing ragebait was the reply predictor and we were aware that angry replies were causing people to see more of that content. So last month, we gave the reply predictor a 15x boost if it's a friend's post -- and it reduced ragebait by [an] order of magnitude."
[1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2610388123
[2] https://www.404media.co/xs-algorithm-feeds-off-ragebait-and-impacts-democrats-more-study-finds/
[3] https://x.com/nikitabier/status/2089763962330230803
Anyone surprised? (Score:4, Insightful)
Twitter was going downhill long before Musk was [1]sort of forced to buy it to stop even more discovery during the trial [time.com]. Now it's just a hellhole.
[1] https://time.com/6220514/twitter-trial-against-musk-halted/
Re: (Score:1)
> Twitter was going downhill long before Musk was [1]sort of forced to buy it to stop even more discovery during the trial [time.com]. Now it's just a hellhole.
Define "going downhill". The news here is that X's filter impacts Democratic viewpoints more by feeding them conservative ragebait. Twitter before musk bought it had a less biased algorithm, but did have content moderation, and that moderation disproportionally affected conservative view points.
So it's swung from one side to another. At some point before and after you deemed it perfect?
[1] https://time.com/6220514/twitter-trial-against-musk-halted/
Re: (Score:3)
Nah the reason is republicans live in a state of fear and rage , so to the ragebait ecosystem on X its just tuesday for them.
Re: Anyone surprised? (Score:1)
I think the evidence presented is that Democrats are the ones engaging with ragebait. I think this is less of an algorithm problem than it is the predisposition of the user.
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Not, it's not. That's just one of the suppositions that needs to be tested.
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Easily observed reality shows that people that constantly block the right wing trolls and dipshits get nothing but right-wing dipshittery in their "For you" feeds, and suggestions to follow right-wing dipshits.
Either they're doing it on purpose, or they are inverting their algorithm's relevance results before presenting them to you. Either way, it's fucking useless and pisses people off.
Re: (Score:2)
> Easily observed reality shows that people that constantly block the right wing trolls and dipshits get nothing but right-wing dipshittery in their "For you" feeds, and suggestions to follow right-wing dipshits.
X's algorithm is right-wing trolls all the way down. Hilariously, most of them aren't even in the US.
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> Twitter was going downhill long before Musk was [1]sort of forced to buy it to stop even more discovery during the trial [time.com]. Now it's just a hellhole.
One correction: It didn't have anything to do with discovery. Discovery was complete when the judge put the trial on hold to allow the deal to close. What happened was that Musk realized that proceeding with the trial was dumb because he was going to lose and be forced to complete the transaction regardless, and possibly on worse terms than he could get by just doing it. Avoiding the public spectacle of the trial was also a consideration, I'm sure, but not discovery... 10 days before trial discovery is
[1] https://time.com/6220514/twitter-trial-against-musk-halted/
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It was going downhill, which is why it was for sale to begin with.
We didn't need him dropping a 5-ton anvil on the accelerator though, which is what he did.
"For You" is nothing but a firehose of right-wing agitprop now. There is literally nothing for me on that page, and they recently seem to have sent out an app update that always causes you to land on that shitshow slop feed every time you wake the app.
Between that, and the "we don't shadowban but put 'labels' only you and the algorithm can see that hide
Is it ragebait, or (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it content they just don't like? Both here and on Reddit, especially when the audience is Russian, I'll make comments that likely piss off the reader, but they don't really have any argument against it, yet are compelled to reply anyways. Like for example, telling Russians that they blew up their own oil storage tank in Moscow. Pisses them off for sure.
But here's the kicker: What's worse, ragebait, or echo chamber where people only hear what they want to hear?
This is the exact criticism I levy against bluesky and others: By giving people only what they want to hear, you're effectively making them dumber, less informed, etc. I'd argue that what twitter is doing is only unhealthy if it convinces people that there are more extremists than there are normal people. But if it's a choice of either having one or the other, I'm tempted to argue that an engaged population is better than a dumb one, we just need to do more to keep people civil AND engaged.
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Yes, to expand on your point - just looking at demographics the Democrats tend to skew younger and the Republicans tend to skew older.
Emotional maturity tends to skew older as well, so it offers two possibilities:
1) The results would be the same based on age, not politicial affiliation.
2) People with less maturity tend to want echo chambers, those with emotional control can more easily engage with challenging opinions.
There are other studies that look at gender, mental health status, psych meds, etc based o
Re:Is it ragebait, or (Score:4)
> Yes, to expand on your point - just looking at demographics the Democrats tend to skew younger and the Republicans tend to skew older.
This is kind of the nature of things. The older people get, the more set in their ways they become, and the less they like change. So basically, people become more conservative as they age, and less tolerant of things they don't understand. They also accumulate more wealth and favor keeping more of it (fiscal conservatism). And so on. This is generally a well-understood phenomenon.
> Emotional maturity tends to skew older as well, so it offers two possibilities:
> 1) The results would be the same based on age, not politicial affiliation.
If you mean that ragebait baits younger people more, you're probably correct. Older people at some point realize that they're not going to change anyone's opinion when it is so thoroughly unhinged in its presentation, because that means they aren't presenting an opinion because of careful thought, but rather because of conditioning. So it's usually a waste of time to reply at all.
> 2) People with less maturity tend to want echo chambers, those with emotional control can more easily engage with challenging opinions.
IMO, rage baiting and echo chambers are basically two sides of the same coin. It's either deliberately provoking them to condition them to attack anything that disagrees with their opinions or it is regurgitating opinions. If anything, rage baiting is the fire that tests the echo chamber. It fuels it. It creates it.
I'm okay with engaging with challenging opinions. This is not the same thing as rage baiting. A challenging opinion requires actually giving reasons for that opinion, supporting evidence, etc. Rage baiting is assuming the contrary without supporting evidence, acting as though everyone knows that it is true, and accusing people of being stupid if they disagree. The two have very little in common. It's the difference between arguing with an intellectual and arguing with a deliberate troll. One can change opinions, or at least refine them. The other is just a bunch of talking heads shouting at each other.
Re: Is it ragebait, or (Score:2)
Trump's pretty old, and ragebaiting him is achieved by simply existing in a state contradictory to how he thinks the world should be. I see a lot of older folks that are like that
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It's nothing to do with emotional maturity. These days younger generations are being shafted by the mistakes their parents and grandparents made, so of course they want change. The older generations did very well out of those mistakes, on the whole, so want things to stay the same, and definitely don't want things to get fairer at their expense.
House prices are a great example. If you don't have a house, you want them to be cheaper. Most people who have a house want to it rise in value, and definitely not f
Simple truth is ragebait to all partisans. (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course it serves more ragebait for Democrats and probably a lot of Republican socialists, too. Most of X is going to be considered ragebait for them. I mean they are going to hate that people are practicing with and enjoying firearms. They are going to hate to hear Libertarians tell the truth about COVID. They are going to hate to hear about the true source of Inflation (Government). They are going to hate to see folks be told about migrant crisis in Europe and about the ICE sending migrants in the US pa
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> I mean it's mostly just the truth about what's really going on.
Do you really believe you can find any truth or facts on X? Everyone - especially the bots (which is a vast majority of the accounts) - on X are lying, distorting, fabricating, taking things out of context, manipulating, all the time.
Sure, you can find all that stuff you mention on X, but there's no truth to be found on X. None.
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You just need to follow me!
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It's just as easy to take everything you said and observe that those people hate simple lies.
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> Of course it serves more ragebait for Democrats and probably a lot of Republican socialists, too. Most of X is going to be considered ragebait for them. I mean they are going to hate that people are practicing with and enjoying firearms.
About 20% of Democrats own firearms. So no, they won't. But implying that Democrats are going to be up in arms because they're somehow so fragile that the idea of people using firearms would cause them crippling pain is rage baiting. Please stop.
> They are going to hate to hear Libertarians tell the truth about COVID.
They are going to hear people who have not actually read any of the scientific papers tell what a bunch of people pushing an agenda on YouTube claim is the truth about COVID. FTFY.
> They are going to hate to hear about the true source of Inflation (Government).
Does anyone actually disagree with that?
> They are going to hate to see folks be told about migrant crisis in Europe and about the ICE sending migrants in the US packing.
What migrant crisis? You mean that immigr
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> I mean they are going to hate that people are practicing with and enjoying firearms.
I must've missed the part where the 2A says it's only applicable to right-wingers. I, as well as several of my friends, own firearms. I actually enjoy watching Kentucky Ballistics on YouTube, and as a content creator he has made it a point to keep culture war politics out of his channel.
If you believe that everyone left-of-center is anti-firearms, you've been mislead by a political engine designed to turn Americans who actually have a lot in common, against each other.
Re: Is it ragebait, or (Score:4, Insightful)
> maybe Drmocrats are just angrier people. that's what I see.
When you have values, and see those values violated, you get angry.
When you believe whatever the orange cheeto says, or when you just want to watch the world burn, what could make you angry?
Re: Is it ragebait, or (Score:1)
If I believed that about people who vote differently than me, I would be angry too. It is not healthy to be angry with people for your imagined crimes. That's how people end up dooms rolling ragebait.
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I've voted for Republicans, Democrats, and independents in my voting lifetime. And I'm completely fine with having policy disagreements or discussions about important issues.
I am NOT okay with blatant lying, misrepresentation, or "alternative facts." It is impossible to have a policy disagreement or discussion when there are no facts and no truth. Then when this produces outcomes that violate my values, yes, I get angry.
There's also rapidly growing nihilism on social media (and in the world), where peop
Re: (Score:2)
ha, censored EVEN ON SLASHDOT, my last online account, for speaking truth.
the liberal sickness has shitified the IT industry.
Re: (Score:2)
goodbye.
Re: Is it ragebait, or (Score:2)
And besides that.. these things never have perfect symmetry. It will always skew into _a_ direction.. no matter intend or lack of intend. So the fact that things are not perfectly symmetrical, does not imply anything by itself. People tend to overlook this.
Re: Is it ragebait, or (Score:1)
Agreed. More violent too. Everybody forgets about the insurrection in Minneapolis last winter. When the Republicans did that, the Biden administration locked up grandmothers for years without trial. We did not see Trump do that and believe me I wanted him to.
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> But here's the kicker: What's worse, ragebait, or echo chamber where people only hear what they want to hear?
Good point, but also a false dichotomy. There IS a middle ground, where some (arbitrary until research gives further guidance) amount of "what I'm interested in" is mixed with some other amount of "everything else regardless of my viewing and posting history" and delivered as posts, recommendations, or whatever.
Of course, this would ultimately result in less addiction to the platforms, and therefore less profit. I see that as yet another argument in favour of social media being regarded as part of the commo
Re: Is it ragebait, or (Score:1)
Not exactly a false dichotomy, namely I'm speaking within a certain context of users already prone to getting emotional in any kind of discussion. It's hard to get any kind of middle with them. This is especially true of Russians in my experience -- they tend to either engage very emotionally, or they don't participate at all and, in their minds, this kind of thing is only for the tsar to deal with, none of their business, good tsar bad boyar, etc.
Anyway, what you're asking for wouldn't work here in the US
Re:Is it ragebait, or (Score:4, Insightful)
> Is it content they just don't like?
The Republican Party itself has become a purveyor of ragebait. This is from [1]the campaign website [byrondonalds.com] of the man who just won Florida's gubernatorial primary:
> From the State House to the US House, Byron has a proven record of standing up for our values. From defending Second Amendment rights, to protecting life, and to keeping radical woke ideology out of schools, Byron will always fight the Left’s agenda.
Look, I'm totally fine with seeing political positions that I disagree with. That's how political discourse in a democracy is supposed to work. The example I just quoted though, is intentionally inflammatory.
[1] https://byrondonalds.com/issues/
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"I'm totally fine with seeing political positions that I disagree with."
Bullshit.
"That's how political discourse in a democracy is supposed to work."
Yes, and your opinion isn't sacred. For every right wing post that hurt your precious feelings, I can show you ten insisting trannies have the right to do burlesque in front of little kids, women insisting on the right to murder their womb fruit, or gleeful at the murder of Charlie Kirk.*
*hint: yes, that was deliberately inflammatory choice of words because le
Re: (Score:2)
> For every right wing post that hurt your precious feelings, I can show you ten ..
But you didn't, and just so we're on the same page - it'd have to be from actual political figures, not bots and so-called influencers. The inflammatory rhetoric from the right is coming [1]directly from the horse's mouth. [nbcnews.com]
> Your TWO posts saying basically the same thing in this thread alone proves that, cupcake
Again, we're talking about inflammatory rhetoric coming from prominent figures inside the party, not the peanut gallery on the internet. Notice the lack of "I'm so-and-so and I approved this message." at the bottom of my posts?
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-posts-ai-video-dumping-no-kings-protesters-rcna238521
Re: Is it ragebait, or (Score:2)
If it's fully clothed burlesque I don't see the problem. It's just another type of person.
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> If it's fully clothed burlesque I don't see the problem. It's just another type of person.
Here in Florida, we actually had a legal battle over the whole kids at drag shows thing. The weirdest part of it was basically conservatives (as in the electorate, not the politicians) being okay with the state taking away yet another aspect of parental rights. Bringing your kid to see a drag show really isn't really any worse than letting them watch something on streaming that's intended for adults, and probably still quite a bit tamer than giving your kid a smartphone with unrestricted internet access *
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> For every right wing post that hurt your precious feelings, I can show you ten insisting trannies have the right to do burlesque in front of little kids, women insisting on the right to murder their womb fruit, or gleeful at the murder of Charlie Kirk.*
1. why should we ban dance performances, when we have parents to keep kids away from content they object to? Why is this any different from kids at a non-trans burlesque show? What happened to the conservative ideal of individual responsibility? Parental responsibility in the nuclear family?
2. The fact that you are calling a generally recognized medical procedure as "murder their womb fruit" shows you are hardly an objective non-biased voice in that particular argument. Why do you, likely a man, get to
Re: (Score:2)
> comments that likely piss off the reader, but they don't really have any argument against it, yet are compelled to reply anyways.
Yes. That is pretty much textbook ragebait. Sites love it, because people reading and replying = engagement = more advert impressions = more money and power.
As for the ragebait vs echo chamber debate? I dunno. Both seem bad to me. Neither will inform anyone or change anyone's mind. Ragebait induces people to double down on their wrongthink, while echo chambers reinforce their wrongthink.
I suggest we pass on both.
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Actually, the "prove me wrong" guy was Steven Crowder. Charlie Kirk was just a political podcaster who really didn't amount to much in the mainstream consciousness until South Park parodied him. Then some lunatic with a screw loose mistook him for someone of prominence within the conservative movement and shot him.
Say what you will about Kirk, he died for what he believed in: that any crazy person should be able to just go out and get their hands on a gun.
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> I'd argue that what twitter is doing is only unhealthy if it convinces people that there are more extremists than there are normal people
X is bad for our democracy because it's controlled by money - money can purchase access to eyeballs through "promoted" Tweets (or whatever they call them now), and money is the basis of the design of X's algorithm (well, that and Musk's ego). So when the oligarchs, massive corporations, and egomaniacs control the information that people see, it quickly destroys democracy and becomes unhealthy for all of us.
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> X is bad for our democracy because it's controlled by money - money can purchase access to eyeballs through "promoted" Tweets (or whatever they call them now), and money is the basis of the design of X's algorithm (well, that and Musk's ego). So when the oligarchs, massive corporations, and egomaniacs control the information that people see, it quickly destroys democracy and becomes unhealthy for all of us.
And by that, you mean X is bad for our democracy because it is a for-profit corporation. Free speech and corporate fiscal sponsorship of that speech have been at odds since time immemorial. The problem is that the corporate sponsorship seems to be winning and the free speech seems to be losing, drowned out by the voices of those who have more money, more bots, etc.
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> And by that, you mean X is bad for our democracy because it is a for-profit corporation
Partially yes. I'm not against earning a profit, or even against the existence of corporations. I'm against the idea that corporations are people; that money is speech; and against the manipulation and exploitation by social media companies whose only care is to make more and more money.
What did you call my mum?! (Score:4, Interesting)
...
When you think about it, a bunch of software engineers, data scientists and managers decided how these algorithms will work...and they have an agenda. (Big surprise)
The thing that annoys me is that I warned everyone I knew about this and it was dismissed as conspiracy theories...you can lead a horse to water but you cannot force it to drink - unless there's some high colour contrast outrageous headline.
...and loads of social media platforms have shitty algos that promote shitty and even downright harmful content...but unlike FB, Twitter was genuinely useful in certain ways until Musk turned it into dog shit.
Re: (Score:1)
A strange game.
The only winning move is not to play....
Different responses (Score:3, Insightful)
> It's unclear why X seems to serve ragebait to Democrats more often than Republicans. 404 Media speculates that it may be because there's more rightwing content on X overall or that Democrats tend to engage with posts they disagree with more often.
Republicans instead storm The Capital, assault police and threaten to hang the Vice President - then get pardoned by a Republican. Or conspire to kidnap governors... Yes, I'm painting Republicans with a broad brush, but a LOT of them aren't denouncing those people and keep supporting the party.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget about getting a pardon via autopen!
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> Don't forget about getting a pardon via autopen!
In case you're serious, or for those that don't know, that's allowed. In fact, The Constitution doesn't even require that pardons be written.
[1]Why Trump Can’t ‘Void’ Biden’s Pardons Because of Autopen [stanford.edu] ( [2]full article [time.com])
[1] https://law.stanford.edu/press/why-trump-cant-void-bidens-pardons-because-of-autopen/
[2] https://time.com/7268902/trump-void-bidens-pardon-autopen/
Re: (Score:3)
>> Don't forget about getting a pardon via autopen!
> In case you're serious, or for those that don't know, that's allowed.
In case you're serious, and don't already know, the basis of the joke that wooshed you is that Trump said Biden's pardons weren't valid because (he claimed) they were done with autopen. Then he pardoned all of the J6ers with the autopen.
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You take a dump on Nancy Pelosi's desk ONE TIME... and they never let you forget it.
Never in the history of Rick Romero (Score:2)
Has any article Rick Romero'd harder than this.
The entire point of buying Twitter was to turn it into a right-wing propaganda Network. It was already not profitable.
Fun fact you bought Twitter for Elon musk. He used investments from other companies to pay off the loans. Companies that are massively overvalued because they are looting your 401k.
Now would be a good time to pick out your favorite flavor of cat food for retirement and you should probably have a dry option as a backup.
Re: (Score:2)
many wealthy people have pet / vanity /fashionable projects.
Most are not profitable and funded by other efforts
They have newspapers,magazines,ranches,rain forests,animal shelters, hospices,hospitals,schools,parks,trusts,charities,etc,etc
Elon buying twitter is just another one of these.
Complaining about the rich is a story as old as time.
Sucessful hunter knows the "spot"
Fishermen know the right rig to catch the big ones
The "King" sleeps on a pile of gold
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> The "King" sleeps on a pile of gold
Not really. The principal task of the investment industry is to take clients' cash and convert it into interest bearing contracts. Negotiable contracts, (collateral for loans, payment for goods and services). Even better, variable interest and term contracts to insure against inflation.
Only boomers want to be sitting on gold, based on my observation of all the gold coin tv ads targeting them.
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I can only imagine the number of cranial blood vessels that burst while this was written.
Oh noes! (Score:1)
One small piece of the interweb social media cesspool isn't conforming to establishment safe space norms. Study it harder!
Not necessarily a bad thing (Score:4, Interesting)
People on ALL social media NEED to see what the other side says just as much as their own. Echo chambers make everything worse for everyone.
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> People on ALL social media NEED to see what the other side says just as much as their own.
I'm fine with being informed that the right-wing apparently has Christian nationalist twink boys going around to colleges giving speeches. [1]Seriously. [wikipedia.org] I don't actually need them in my Twitter feed constantly bitching that America has left the path of God because reasons . There is a difference.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilyn_Hollyhand
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't sound like you actually want to hear anyone that disagrees with you. You make that abundantly clear.
Insisting against all obvious signals that "but I want to hear people from the other side" is simply an outright lie.
How do you believe people are so stupid that you believe they'll believe you? Are you that used to just talking to your reddit friends?
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There's a difference between hearing what the other side has to say so you can improve your own arguments or potentially revise your own positions to be more amicable to a compromise, versus being preached at by someone whose beliefs are beyond logical contestation.
It's worth mentioning that so-called culture war issues tend to involve things where compromise just isn't possible, so there isn't really much room for debate on those topics. That's why a lot of the people who were sick of what Twitter became
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You seem to be ignoring the most obvious problem: bad faith argumentation.
When "the other side" is provably lying or arguing in bad faith using logical fallacies and bullshit, there's no reason to listen.
Bring a good faith argument, and you'll probably see people are willing to listen a bit more. But first, the entire Republican party has a massive credibility problem after a decade of constant lies. After a certain amount of time, nobody is going to listen any more because of not wanting to be exposed to
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> People on ALL social media NEED to see what the other side says just as much as their own.
The story here is precisely that it's not doing so equally.
> Echo chambers make everything worse for everyone
Large public platforms are rarely echo chambers unless they were setup as such. The problem is people make them echo chambers. They follow things they like and agree with which proceeds to train the algorithm to feed them that kind of content.
Its truly jarring how algorithmic systems feed completely different content to one account vs another.
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> People on ALL social media NEED to see what the other side says just as much as their own. Echo chambers make everything worse for everyone.
Ragebait isn't about seeing what the other side says.
It's about seeing an inflammatory caricature of the other side.
For example, a Liberal isn't going to see some Conservative discussing some of the hard tradeoffs we'll need to pay down the debt. They'll see a Conservative proposing that Trump be given a 3rd term and trans kids get rounded up and forced into conversion therapy or some crap like that.
Meanwhile, Conservatives won't see some Liberal discussing the economics of Universal Healthcare. They'll see
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> It's about seeing an inflammatory caricature of the other side.
Which is what drives up engagement. Can't have people getting the impression that most people fall more towards the middle on the political spectrum, because that's just boring.
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What sides? Fair and reasonable discourse is impossible on these platforms. There's only the side of those who control the algorithms, and the suckers who engage with them.
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> People on ALL social media NEED to see what the other side says just as much as their own.
Yes, but the question is how it's being represented. Are they being provided with the well articulated viewpoint shared by the vast majority of the other side they disagree with? Or are they being shown the most extreme, inflammatory edge cases of the other side which are incorrectly being portrayed as mainstream? The former can encourage debate, but the latter is just fueling an attitude of "those people are crazy, there's no way I can co-exist with them."
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The character limit on Twitter (unless you have a paid subscription, yuck) also pretty much guarantees that all debates ultimately devolve into insults, because it's a lot easier to just call someone's mom a ho, rather than systematically attack all the flaws in their argument. Especially if you're typing on a phone.
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> People on ALL social media NEED to see what the other side says
I don't "need" to see people saying that Trump is a no-war president, only for those to later complain that Trump does the equivalent of doing wars on other countries.
I don't "need" to see that FEMA cuts are necessary, only for those to later be upset about not receiving the benefits from those cuts during a disaster.
I don't "need" to see a trump-supporting farmer upset that someone who allegedly connect them for $500,000, only to be later upset
anecdotally. (Score:2)
I know for me, if I read something I disagree with, I may snark at it-- willingly, as I know it's driving my algorithm. But I generally don't get angry and view much of it as useless fluff I can effectively ignore.
One of my past best friends, however, was a hard left Bay area resident, and she eventually got pissed off and "officially" dropped me as a friend because I wasn't angry enough about some thing that occurred which I can't even remember. It was literally " I can't be friends with someone who isn't
It worked on me! (Score:2)
Account closed.
I created my twitter account when the service was practically new and only used it a handful of times - so I might not be the target audience. Even so, I miss the original idea of it.
Didn't they just open source the algoritm? (Score:2)
So someone can check to see why it does this?
Re: (Score:2)
Came looking for this comment. I haven't looked at the algorithm but to me it's a glaring omission that the summary doesn't link to it. The intellectually honest and interested reader is invited to read and report back.
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yes and it maximizes engagement. period. it doesn't differentiate between positive and negative engagement. They have the tech to do that, but it would be expensive to run it at that scale for every comment on every post all day long.
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> Republicans are just happier people than Democrats. [...] They're just easier to wind up.
Yes, it's easier to get people with empathy riled up.
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> Republicans are just happier people than Democrats.
Nah, both sides seem to believe the country is going to hell in a handbasket, just for different reasons.
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Cheers ;)
Anything that maximizes engagement (Score:2)
IF they don't pair engagement signals with sentiment analysis on those same ones and treat them like a whole signal together (subtracting points for negative sentiment and adding it to positive) then they will all do this. The algorithm is public. We already know it doesn't use sentiment.
The algorithm only gives what you like (Score:1)
Leftists naturally engage with ragebait. Che Guevara famously said, "Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world." The person who believes in that will seek out offense. Is it any surprise that the algorithm would give him what he's been looking for?
Because the Democrats all went to Bluesky (Score:2)
X - nee Twitter has skewed Republican ever since Musk bought it because the Democrats went "Eeew, fascist!" and ran to Bluesky which was essentially a rewrite of Mastodon which was where all the Republicans tried to run to when non-Musk owned Twitter BANNED Republican accounts for censorship reasons.
If the bulk of the content is going to skew one way that's what the majority of the users are going to see. True of X, true of Bluesky.
The only way to "win" here is not to play. Which, I don't.
Target rage, or intellectually challenging ideas? (Score:1)
One person's "OMGTHATSSOSTUPIDYOUAREANIDIOTIFYOUTHINKTHAT" is another person's "hmm, I haven't thought of things that way, tell me more about what you think so I can contemplate it."
We need more people in the second group.
The X algorithm is open-source (Score:1)
You can find it here:
https://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm/blob/main/README.md
Now let's see Facebook's, and Youtube's, and TicToc's, yes?
Um, yeah (Score:2)
Democrats go to Twitter to be mad about something, scream at someone about it, and then feel superior like they accomplished something. So yeah, that's what they get shown because that's what they click on and that's why they're there.
"Impacts Democrats more." (Score:2)
That's certainly an interesting way of saying that Democrats are more likely to engage often with things that make them angry.
Democrats on X? :-) (Score:2)
The actual 'X' needs 4 serifs that are missing.:-)
Let me tell ya somethin (Score:2)
"It's unclear why X seems to serve ragebait to Democrats more often than Republicans. 404 Media speculates that it may be because there's more rightwing content on X overall or that Democrats tend to engage with posts they disagree with more often. "
Sentiment analysis, behavioral segmentation, ie. ML stuff most data engineers can build doesn't look all that complicated until you start creating these kinds of feedback loops. If you describe the whole system as an algorithm, that kind of hides all the levers
Well DUH (Score:2)
It's all about triggering neural chemistry, fight or flight (fight being prevalent because of the inherent feeling of being "safe" behind the screen), pleasure, risk and reward, etc
These companies know 100% what they are doing, how addictive it is and how profitable it is.
This is also why they REALLY want access to kids, nothing to do with free speech, they KNOW a developing brain is easier to addict and much much much harder to treat for the addiction. They are building products for life (if it's free,
Liberals hold grudges longer, it's a fact. (Score:2)
My father held grudges. I'll never forgive him for it.
Both sides probably spread hate about the dems (Score:2)
Because they're painfully out of alignment with the actual public.
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typical right wing pussy whats the matter too fat to get of your mobility scooter to do it in person one on one?
Re: "The Beating of a Liberal" (Score:2)
It really doesn't matter if you're a left wing retard or a right wing retard. Comments like these are as helpful as peeing in your own kitchen garden or soiling your own pants.
Re: "The Beating of a Liberal" (Score:2)
At the OP.
Facebook is atrocious this way (Score:5, Interesting)
My feed filled itself with political rage bait groups and pages after I took the bait from one of them. It's pretty annoying because no matter how many times I pick "hide all from..." there is an endless supply of rage bait.
The stuff that brought me to Facebook is basically just needles in the haystack of crap at this point.
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I'd found Facebook mostly infers your political beliefs from the politicians you follow, and if you don't follow any politicians it will assume you align similarly with the bulk of your friends. The easiest way to get it to stop showing you political views you're not interested is, unfortunately, to start following some of the politicians that you hate the least.
The social media site formerly known as Twitter, however, is a dumpster fire. It's really only worth going on if you want to shout into the void
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> I'd found Facebook mostly infers your political beliefs from the politicians you follow, and if you don't follow any politicians it will assume you align similarly with the bulk of your friends. The easiest way to get it to stop showing you political views you're not interested is, unfortunately, to start following some of the politicians that you hate the least.
What if there are no politicians that we don't hate infinitely?
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> I'd found Facebook mostly infers your political beliefs from the politicians you follow, and if you don't follow any politicians it will assume you align similarly with the bulk of your friends. The easiest way to get it to stop showing you political views you're not interested is, unfortunately, to start following some of the politicians that you hate the least.
I assure you there is an easier way. I hope you're able to figure it out.
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> I assure you there is an easier way. I hope you're able to figure it out.
Hold down on the Facebook app icon until it starts wiggling, then tap the "X"? Flaw in that workaround is that you lose access to all the people you actually do want to follow.
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You're right, it's a constant, soul-sucking trap. People joke that they thought quicksand would be larger factor in their lives, but this is figuratively mental quicksand. The more you fight it, the more you get sucked in. The only way to win is not to play. Close the app and come back in 20 minutes... or not at all.