166
New analysis shows TikTok pushing hard right content in Polish election (globalwitness.org)
submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Archived version

The new investigation reveals a pronounced skew in the content promoting the two presidential candidates, over that of centrist and left-wing candidates.

In the study conducted by Global Witness investigators, TikTok showed our test accounts five times more content supporting nationalist right candidate Karol Nawrocki as centrist candidate Rafal Trzaskowski. This is despite the centrist candidate’s official TikTok account being more popular at the time than his opponent’s, with 12,000 more followers and nearly 1 million more likes.

...

“When we found TikTok was sending new, politically balanced users disproportionately to far right content ahead of the Romanian election, the European Commission launched an investigation. When we found the same thing happening again ahead of the German election, we were seriously concerned about a potential pattern emerging.

“But when we looked at Poland, heading to the polls this week, we thought the results might have been different – particularly as the centrist candidate is so much more popular on the platform.

“Yet again, TikTok’s algorithm appears to be serving hard-right content over and above all other content.

“It raises the question, why is TikTok’s algorithm so into the hard right? And what is the Commission going to do about the fact that another Big Tech company may be distorting so many elections all over Europe?”

The findings come just two weeks after a Global Witness investigation in Romania found TikTok’s algorithm was serving nearly three times as much far-right content as all other political content, and similar tests around previous elections in Germany and Romania suggesting TikTok’s algorithm pushes users towards far-right content. TikTok is currently under investigation by the European Commission for its handling of election risks, with particular reference to the annulled Romania election in late 2024.

...

top 14 comments
sorted by: hot top new old
[-] [email protected] 39 points 3 weeks ago

This shit needs to be outlawed and heavily fined/enforced with outright service blocking or service confiscation.

Foreign political ads/manipulation has no place in peoples feeds.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Surveillance capitalism benefits the most criminal and corrupt the most. As they possess no morals or ethics, they're happy to use all available data and methods — however illegal — to engage in psychological warfare, disinformation, and straight lies to "con" voters into supporting criminals.

This means that surveillance capitalism is authoritarianism, as it will serve to promote the worst governance and destroy the best; the enshittification of government. It is the greatest threat to transparent, honest, and just governance — to democracy — probably in all of modern history; certainly in the history of politics and information warfare.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

They were gonna be banned in America so they bent the knee to the Taco King

[-] [email protected] 26 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Same as in Romania. After the far-right loser lost, they started pushing lies for starting conflict.

Do not treat them as anything close to "harmless".

[-] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago

It's good to have evidence though and it's good to have it investigated.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

Shocked Pikachu face

[-] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

Make algorithms default opt-out. Easy fix

[-] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

Not sure how it compares to tiktok, but youtube seems to be favoring far-right content as well.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah “how to fix a toilet” got me recommended a jordan peterson rant. Thanks youtube, very cool.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

You need to flush 10, 15 times!

[-] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

Oh like they do every single election everywhere?

[-] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I really hope they, not just tiktok, but every social platform that promotes far right and spreads misinformation and propaganda, will be punished accordingly

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Of course, the bourgeois who control social media want fascism.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

So far, Canada and Romania have dodged the bullets. Good luck, Poland. Don’t believe the tripe.

this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
166 points (96.1% liked)

Europe

6396 readers
770 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in [email protected]. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
  10. Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.

(This list may get expanded as necessary.)

Posts that link to the following sources will be removed

Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media. Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com

(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)

Ban lengths, etc.

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @[email protected]

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]