this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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The AfD was twice as effective at reaching first-time voters on the app than all other parties combined, according to an analysis of platform data. This may explain why the party performed so well among young voters.

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[–] [email protected] 110 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Same shit happened here in Finland too, our extremist right wing party is very active on TikTok and the under 25's voted for them in droves. That generation is more conservative than Millennials or even younger Gen X, which is a bit fucked up. Especially young men and boys have gone off the deep end

[–] [email protected] 59 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Unfortunately true for a lot of European countries. It's easy to post a 20 second video about "foreigners bad" and kids with the attention span of a gnat will eat it right up. A longer video that explains why things really are the way they are will get swallowed by the algorithm. It just amplifies populism and outrage and will be one of the great hurdles to overcome this century.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Honestly I think we're thoroughly fucked at this point

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (3 children)

We could force control of Tik Tok's algorithm to be managed by a United States entity. You know, basically what China does to US businesses who want to sell product in China.

If they don't want that, they could let Google serve wikipedia articles about Tienanmen Square again lol.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I'm not entirely convinced putting the US in charge of it would make things any better. It's not like eg. Facebook or Twitter aren't full of reich wing bullshit on purpose

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

It's a fair point. Frankly, considering where I am, I think America's social media should really be forced to engage with some kind of open federation standard (doesn't have to be activity pub) as I think it better reflects how the United States itself is designed as a republic. That feels like a long shot, but it's the dream.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

We could just ban personalized algorithms altogether

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is China tailoring the content to politics or are political influencers just better at pandering to people with blatant lies. Either way tiktok and other social networks should have more controls in place to filter misinformation but I'm curious if the affect is intentional or incidental.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Is China tailoring the content to politics or are political influencers just better at pandering...

It's hard to say without proof so I won't pretend to know the answer. What I do know is that, if the roles were reversed, China would 100% believe that any movement that caused chaos within the country was somehow orchestrated by the United States as that's what they've done in the past. So, until we have a hospitable relationship where the countries see eye to eye on any social issues, it really doesn't make sense for either control to have the keys to a popular social media network in the other -- if you get my drift. I will also say that promotional programs of games and movies from China, like the recent Wukong controversy, highlights that China very much believes in pushing their political narrative to the degree that it would be hard to imagine them not using it with a widely popular social media network like Tik Tok.

This is where federation is smart though -- the content is dispersed enough that the idea of removing a server is less daunting and there are fewer entities that are too big to fail.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If it's any consolation

But that battle is a tough one for Republicans, given Gen Z voters overwhelmingly supported Democrats over Republicans in the midterms by 27 points — and prioritized protecting abortion access by a higher amount than any other generation, according to SocialSphere's survey data.

I suspect the kids, as a whole, are alright. Not that we shouldn't take this seriously, but we don't have to start planning our funerals yet.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hmm, I wonder if Gen Z's politics are different over there compared to here, because at least in Finland the 2. most popular parties they voted for were a right wing extremist party and a "fiscally conservative" party that is essentially indistinguishable from the extremist one (the joke is that the way to tell them apart is that the "fiscal conservatives" wear more expensive suits.) Sure, many do also vote for eg. the Left Alliance who are democratic socialists, but on the whole the generation is more conservative than the older ones

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not sure, but I can say from personal experience here that, while right-wing parties are less popular amongst Gen Z, the right-wingers that are in Gen Z tend to be very political, not just casually political, and more extreme than your average Joe Schmoe conservative. Might be a contributor.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah it's the same here, they and the younger gens have apparently gotten very polarized; the ones who are "good eggs" are really decent folks, and the shitty ones are really shitty.

So while the extremist reich wing party PS (Perussuomalaiset or "Finns Party", because naturally only a nationalist wank is a real Finn) was their most popular party, as a proportion of their cohorts more young people voted for the Left Alliance than older ones did. Here's a handy table from our 2023 parliamentary elections (source):

  • KOK: National Coalition Party, fiscally conservative
  • PS: Finns Party, extremist right wing
  • SDP: Social Democrat, liberal / marginally left
  • KESK: Centre Party, what it says on the tin
  • VAS: Left Alliance, democratic socialists
  • VIHR: Green League, liberal & green
  • SFP: Swedish People's Party, right wing
  • KD: Christian Democrats, nearly as bad as PS
  • LIIK: Movement Now, nominally center right but about as right wing as KOK

Actually based on that study the claim that gen Z is more conservative than older gens doesn't seem to hold up. Seems like they're about as conservative, but also more likely to vote Left

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

it has been shown:

the more crisis in a society, the more pressure you need to keep it under control, the more extreme the outer fringes get. It is always this way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

For a couple of generations at the very least, yeah.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

It's the same everywhere because the far right are actively trying to manipulate people and get then into "the pipeline" while the left don't have a coordinated propaganda campaign.

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No shit. Social media is spreading ruzzian propaganda like the plague.

And the people in power don’t seem to give a shit.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They might care more, if they understood any of it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, here in Germany, most politicians don't really like to engage with digital topics at all and flat out refuse to use the internet. Which explains why my country has the worst internet in Western Europe by far.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It's quite logical even. Right-wing answers are short, simple and spoken with certainty. That's great for a half-minute clip. Answers grounded in reality are complex, require proof and have some uncertainty. That's not gonna fit in there, or, at the very least, you need an outstanding communicator.

No matter the age, most people stick just with what they hear most often.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

Right-wing answers are short, simple and spoken with certainty.

"Every problem out there has a very simple, but equally wrong solution"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Do Flat Earth and/or religious apologetics do well on TikTok?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Kind of? I remember a statistic about pseudo-science being more popular with younger generations. Energy healing, healing stones and all that other homeopathic bullshit. Assuming that is indeed correct, Flat Earth is likely more popular too.

It probably does okay simply by virtue of being so stupid, there aren't many people in their right mind producing videos about the earth being round to drown them out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

It's good that some refute their points just for fun.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Of course younger generations are more likely to believe in pseudo science, they haven't yet learned that they are bullshit. Once they get older and have more experience with detecting bullshit, it's popularity should decline.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago

Wait, a Chinese government tool is spreading anti democracry propaganda?!?! SHOCKING!!

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Bad headline. Should have titled as 'AfD is better at promotion on tiktok' or something of that sort

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Many first timers on Tiktok report that the first thing they see is this nazi crap right after registration. This is not normal.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

exactly. even i can make videos in tik tok for my "ritalin is better than alcohol " party. takes 5 minutes.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

One reason could be that a network of well-connected right-wing influencers on TikTok share AfD content and help amplify it, according to Verwiebe. Another could be that the majority of AfD candidates, more than any other party, are themselves active on the platform.

I have another: It's in the financial interest of Tiktok to promote an extremist party with extreme neoliberal views in order to make more profit.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I live over there, so :

young people are not the voting demographic, give me a break.

as if all those village inbreds aged 30 - 90 would go on tik tok.

and IF all these people ware watching nazi ads on tik took:

so what? they certainly don't read the newspapers, and the democratic partys won't try to make them better offerings anyway. because all these convincing offerings would consist of more infrastructure, more public transport, more wages, better future prospects. and what have you.

but thats far to expensive, and is not at all what the democartic centrist parties are doing right know. so they CAN'T bring the voter better arguments and offerings.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If only it was limited to TikTok. YouTube always recommends me those right shit videos, just because I'm german. (And no, it's not personalization. I've turned that off, and it seems to work, YouTube doesn't recommend me anything similar to the stuff that I actually watch.)
And if I didn't know that and how those right populists want to manipulate me, I would have long been radicalized already. There are just too many gullible people. Ads work for them, classical populism works for them, they give nigerian princes their money, they believe in superstition, why would anyone think voters were suddenly at least borderline resistent against populism?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

i am also german, i didnt get those right wing contents. which content are we talking about, by the way`?

have you examples?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sorry for the late answer. Somehow I got a bad case of demo effect.

For example, under this video I'm getting recommendations such as:

Spoiler

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

huh, that sure is wierd. i clicked the video on your link. i had the usual thing recommended: spaceships, farm machinery, how to play solo x on guitar, star trek and star wars news, and i had one anti afd video.

i assume the problem lies in what you watched and did before on the internet. google is very connected, you see. you get always more of the things you researched and watched.

i use firefox and have llots of various blockers and privacy stuff enabled, and turned off everything i could turn of in google and youtube, i mean, the datamining stuff.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It will likely also depend on where you live, i.e. city vs rural area.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

for sure, I just recently also turned geo location stuff of, even camera and microphone. I read a couple of articles that mentioned various issues with third parties listening to words, and what ever whattsapp does, i dont even want to know.

i always said it was just conspiracy talk that this mirophone listens to us, but earnestly, why are so mamny apps connected to the microphone anyway?

well. I have to delete my google account sooner or later. getting worse and worse prices onlineshopping is also a huge concern.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Not that I needed another reason to dislike TikTok but...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

The chairwoman for the AfD, Alice Weidel, worked for the Bank of China. It would not surprise me if she used her connections with the CCP and TikTok to persuade the fucking idiots in Thüringen.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So… wait. Everyone is back to hating TikTok again?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Was it ever any different? People who use it like it and people who don't, hate it.

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