A study found that TikTok’s recommendation algorithm favored Republican-leaning content during the 2024 U.S. presidential race.
TikTok, with over a billion active users worldwide, has become a key source of news, particularly for younger audiences.
Using 323 simulated accounts, researchers discovered that Republican-leaning users received 11.8% more aligned content than Democratic-leaning users, who were exposed to more opposing viewpoints.
The bias was largely driven by negative partisanship, with more anti-Democratic content recommended.
For example, in Maricopa County, Ariz., home to Phoenix, Harris got roughly 61,000 fewer votes than Biden in 2020. Trump, on the other hand, gained about 56,000, for a 117,000-vote shift in just one county.
In a broad sense, the poll, which surveyed a representative sample of 2,128 adults nationwide, found that Americans think the Republican Party is more in sync with the mood of the country. The issues that people said mattered most to Republicans were also, for the most part, the issues that mattered to them: immigration, the economy, inflation and taxes.