Twitter says its research shows its algorithms amplify right-leaning content more than left-leaning content, but doesn't know what causes the amplification
Twitter's disclosure joins a record of ranking and presentation problems: it had already inserted unfollowed accounts' posts into users' feeds, and its image-cropping review found uneven treatment across demographic groups. The new finding matters because it identifies a political distribution outcome without identifying the ranking behavior producing it.
First-order effects
Twitter has evidence of asymmetric political amplification but no stated causal mechanism, limiting its ability to target a corrective change at a particular ranking signal.
Users and political accounts are affected by a feed whose distribution outcome Twitter has acknowledged, while the company cannot yet attribute that outcome to content, engagement, or another input.
Second-order effects
The subsequent NYU explanation centered on ratio-driven engagement gives researchers and critics a concrete mechanism to test, increasing pressure on Twitter to distinguish engagement effects from other ranking choices.
If similar findings continue without causal explanations, feed-ranking accountability will shift from assessing stated neutrality to auditing measurable distribution outcomes and the engagement signals behind them.
Political reach on large social platforms may increasingly depend on interaction patterns that platforms treat as engagement, rather than only on who chooses to follow an account.
The trend: Social-platform ranking is moving from opaque claims of neutral distribution toward scrutiny of the measurable political and media effects of engagement-optimized feeds.
This is fascinating. Germany's laws restricting hate speech on the internet have not resulted in a catastrophic restriction of free speech...not at all. h/t @kniggem But they may explain this: https://twitter.com/... https://www.ceps.eu/...
“The left can't meme”, said the Twitter algorithm while putting on it's Oakley sunglasses and riding a quad into the sunset. https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
NEW: Twitter released its own research today that shows that the home feed amplifies right-wing political content more than left-leaning. I sat down with META team leader @ruchowdh to learn what Twitter will do with that information https://www.protocol.com/...
“Tweets posted by accounts from the political right receive more algorithmic amplification than the political left” “Right-leaning news outlets...see greater algorithmic amplification on @Twitter compared to left-leaning news outlets” https://blog.twitter.com/... Malloy unspools …
Twitter's done well to study what its algorithms are doing and to tell the world rather than burying it. Next step is to figure out why it's happening. https://twitter.com/...
One of the main reasons I joined Twitter was because of its approach to transparency and this is another great example of those principles. https://twitter.com/...
Twitter amplifying right-wing politicians is not new, but hopefully with Facebook's reputation taking even faster, they'll actually do something about it https://www.protocol.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Wow. Twitter's algorithms amplify tweets from the political right more than from the political left in six (US, UK, Canada, France, Spain, Japan) out of seven countries studied according to Twitter's own research published today. The outlier: 🇩🇪Germany https://blog.twitter.com/..…
Twitter is a sociotechnical system - our algos are responsive to what's happening. What's next is a root cause analysis - is this unintended model bias? Or is this a function of what & how people tweet, and things that are happening in the world? Or both? 6/n
Twitter finds that right-wing news, politicians are disproportionately amplified on its news feed. While the bias is clear, the cause is not - Twitter is now working to study why this bias might exist: https://www.protocol.com/...
It's honestly amazing that people on the right keep pushing the “social media is biased against conservatives!!!” line even though every social media platform's algorithm is tilted *in their favor* https://twitter.com/...
For real. Go sign up for a Twitter account. Look at the accounts it recommends for you to follow. And then watch what happens when you don't follow anyone. Within a couple weeks, Twitter will just start pushing right-wing “highlights” to you.
wait, so.... there's *not* a rule that says social media companies have to study this kind of thing only in private, keep the methods and findings under wraps, and then snippily refute them and trash-talk the researchers when they inevitably leak? https://twitter.com/...
@ruchowdh this is good stuff. I can tell you why, tho: there are multiple libidinal economies in play on the TL and the algo (capital, technoculture, and white supremacy) https://www.engadget.com/...
Twitter's own research shows that it's a megaphone for the right-leaning content — its algorithms amplify right-leaning political content more than left-leaning, but they aren't sure why..... ummmm, maybe BOTS??? https://www.protocol.com/...
my research shows that someone has been getting into the Halloween candy while my wife is at work, but doesn't know who's doing it https://twitter.com/...
the thing about this is, if you are a company run by people who largely believe that the “political right” is harmful and you know your algorithms amplify content from the “political right,” wouldn't you disable algorithmic amplification? https://www.engadget.com/...