Recommendation algorithms operated by social media giants TikTok and X have shown evidence of substantial far-right political bias in Germany ahead of a federal election that takes place Sunday, according to new research carried out by Global Witness.
The non-government organization (NGO) undertook an analysis of social media content displayed to new users via algorithmically sorted “For You” feeds — finding both platforms skewed heavily toward amplifying content that favors the far-right AfD party in algorithmically programmed feeds.
Global Witness’ tests identified the most extreme bias on TikTok, where 78% of the political content that was algorithmically recommended to its test accounts, and came from accounts the test users did not follow, was supportive of the AfD party. (It notes this figure far exceeds the level of support the party is achieving in current polling, where it attracts backing from around 20% of German voters.)
In Germany, we also call this game ‘werewolf’. Never heard of ‘wolf’ alone, except for the animal.
Das ist so :) I just shortened it, because I wasn’t sure english speakers would know the word
Yes, this is interesting! ‘Wer’ (meaning ‘man’) came from Old High German with the Anglo Saxons 1,500 years ago, and was part of Old English. It then became ‘were’ in Middle English and remains as part of werewolf (‘man wolf’) in modern English.
That’s wild actually, love learning the history behind words. Did you know that very fun fact from the top of your head?
Then I got one for you!
Sculptors in antique Rome could fix mistakes they made by mixing marble dust with wax. If a sculptor was especially gifted and made no mistakes that needed fixing, they would market their art as “sin cera”, which means “without wax”, which is where the word “sincere” comes from
No, not off the top of my head. But English is roughly half French/Latin and half German, with some Norse and other influences thrown in. Wer or were sound Germanic, so then a little Wikipedia help filled in the details.