Ingrid Weideman

The political effects of X's feed algorithm https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2 Received: 16 December 2024 Accepted: 4 January 2026 Published online: 18 February 2026 Open access • Check for updates Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right.

Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement.

This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.

Video Reveals Trump’s Sexual Misconduct With Children Newly resurfaced evidence.

Video Reveals Trump’s Sexual Misconduct With Children
open.substack.com/pub/borowitz...

Taking the long way around (for Notes from a Small Planet - use logo) Climate journalist Leonie Joubert and the lonely work of creating agency among communities struggling to make sense of the effects of climate change.…

www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026...

A fascinating journey by @leoniejoubert.bsky.social

Meet Minnesota Bathrobe Lady Sam Stroozas of MPR News | Minnesota Public Radio Earlier this week, an unexpected and fast-moving incident unfolded in St. Paul, Minnesota involving both federal and local law enforcement. As crowds gathered and questions mounted, one of our MPR New...

hello minnesota and beyond! thank you for your kind messages. it is very weird to be the news when you cover the news. i love this beautiful state and journalism, and i am hopeful for better days. but we will be forever changed bc of the last two months.

4 Months Trapped in a Hospital for an Obsolete Way of Treating Their Disease

"Because TB is a disease of the poorest people in the poorest places, the systems to diagnose and care for them remain antiquated"

@stephanienolen.bsky.social reports on the ground realities from Cameroon

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/h...

Six prints in pinks, orange and reds with images of different flowers

Grace Gillespie, contemporary printmaker #Womensart

Xolobeni’s rusty titanium-rich coastal dunes are synonymous with the amaMpondo’s 20-year battle to keep extractive mining out of their ancestral lands.

Read: ‘Everything is a being’ for South Africa’s amaMpondo fighting to protect nature.

news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

A large stuffed folder of files with the title “Epstein” is seen with what looks, at first glance, like a red page marker sticking out of the bottom. On closer inspection it is the bottom of a Trump red neck tie. French newspapers once again showing the kind of basic journalistic integrity lacking from most US national newspapers - whose collective negligence has helped ensure a man implicated in the world’s most notorious sex trafficking ring gets to remain President. That the orange pedo felon remains in office is a plague on all their houses. Cunts, one and all.

The cartoon that appeared this week on the front page of France’s most influential national newspaper, Le Monde

Brilliant work by the cartoonist, Guffo.

BREAKING: The Epstein survivors are releasing this ad on this Super Bowl Sunday to send the message that they will not “move on” from the largest sex trafficking scandal in the world. #standwithsurvivors

U.S. Atty Gen. Pam Bondi and FBI Dir. Kash Patel have both sworn under oath that zero evidence of other people committing crimes exists within the Epstein Files.

Here are emails from people whose identities have been redacted, both attaching photos, both adding notes stating “Age 10” and “Age 11.”

The best thing to have is enough.

Sudanese survivors of el-Fasher siege tell the BBC about RSF brutality | BBC News YouTube video by BBC News

A horrific mass murder is unfolding in Sudan, where no one can see it. The RSF are murdering civilians in El Fasher, having finally defeated the Sudanese army forces holding out in the city. The BBC has managed to speak to some who escaped

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7fC...

Versöhnungskirche in Berlin Mitte, demolished in 1985 by the East ...In January 1985, the East German border troops destroyed the Versöhnungskirche (Church of Reconciliation) because it was located in the border strip and was seen as an obstacle to border surveillance.

High on ink Like all our cash-strapped municipalities, most of Joburg’s service delivery problems are visible on its crumbling, potholed surface. Despite some welcome change in recent weeks, the stagnated roadwor...

Joburg’s roads show the cost of poor service delivery: potholes, stalled repairs, burst pipes, broken lights. Millions wasted. But wait until you see what it's been wasted on... Full #CarteBlanche story available now on DStv
Stream and Catch Up. #SouthAfrica #News

Looking down a canal towpath last week on a misty morning. A disused canal on the left with ducks swimming in the water. On the right is a large overgrown hedgerow that curves over the path. A woman is stood directly under the hedge as she waits for her dog that is out of sight around the corner. A black and white photo

#Alphabetchallenge #WeekPForPink #ClassicMono
Quiet along the canal

Retribution Is Here The president’s threats of revenge are no longer bluster.

“It bears pausing on the starkness of these facts: The president of the United States demanded the jailing of two elected officials who belong to the opposing political party” www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

JANE GOODALL'S LAST INTERVIEW Recorded on 9/23/25 YouTube video by dreamlion

youtube.com/watch?v=4osh...

Developed world, take note!

Government buys a broken oil refinery while global companies simply walk away. What motives lie behind the wall of silence? That's #CarteBlanche this Sunday at 7pm on M-Net channel 101, and DStv Stream. #SouthAfrica #News @groundworksa.bsky.social @opensecrets.org.za

A wonderful interview!

Battle to breathe: What we know about air pollution in Mpumalanga and people’s health Journalist Sue Segar and photographer Thom Pierce recently visited Emalahleni in Mpumalanga to report on how air pollution is impacting the health of people in the area. In part 3 of this Spotlight sp...

BATTLE TO BREATHE | One of the complexities in reporting on air pollution in an area like Emalahleni is that the air often contains not only one problematic substance, but a soup of potentially harmful stuff.

www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2025/09/10/b...

The lesson from history is clear: When lifesaving HIV treatment was delayed, millions died needlessly. We cannot afford the same mistake with HIV prevention, write Fatima Hassan, Leena Menghaney, and Bellinda Nkoana.

www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2025/09/09/a...

Various photos of houses with white walls and blue painted floral designs, as well as the artist herself at work

Agnes Kasparkova, 90-Year-Old Czech former agricultural worker who turned her small village into an art gallery by painting traditional Moravian motifs on the local houses. The project went on for over 13 years #WomensArt

Illustration of a fox facing right looking forward in a woodland with tall dark trees

Paula Mela, Finnish illustrator known for her fairytale-like works #WomensArt

New evidence shows micro plastics being blown in over headwaters of 1 of SADC's most NB water catchments. It is to region what acid rain was to Europe in '80s. #DailyMaverick @dailymaverick.co.za @coveringclimatenow.org #plasticpollution #microplastics #plastictreaty

Great journalism @leoniejoubert.bsky.social

Tukulo Mtshayelo restored a spring on the outskirts of his village, one of three main sources that locals draw on for water.

More here: www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025...