Henrik Sköld

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.

First pictures have been released showing Swedish Special Forces, the SOG-Special Operations Group, Swedish Coast Jaegers and Airforce Rangers in an exercise with Danish Special Forces in Greenland. Sweden has sent the Cream of the Armed Forces and 6 Gripen fighters to help protect Greenland🇬🇱🇩🇰🇸🇪

Sent svar här och du kanske redan löst det, men jag följer ett flöde som heter Sverige, som jag tror att du kan få upp på den här länken: bsky.app/profile/did:...

Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For

Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes!

"Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is stay soft in a world that keeps asking you to harden up.

Pay attention to what steadies you — a quiet moment, a voice, a song — and keep those things close. They ain’t escapes; they’re anchors.

The cure for ignorance is not information. It's humility and curiosity.

Facts can be easily dismissed. What motivates people to gain insight is recognizing gaps in their understanding and wanting to find out more.

The root of lifelong learning is knowing how little we know.

Oj...

Spotlighting The World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell Somewhat devastating news today from the CIA: One of CIA’s oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset. There's not even a hint as to why they …

The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions!

This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...

Perceiving AI as labor-replacing reduces democratic legitimacy and political engagement | PNAS AI is expected to reshape society and labor markets, yet experts remain divided on whether AI will primarily displace human labor or generate new e...

People exposed to messages about AI as a labor-replacing (instead of labor-creating) technology end up distrusting democracy and show less willingness to engage politically with future AI developments. Interesting in @pnas.org

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The Global Risks Report 2026 The Global Risks Report 2026 analyses global risks through three timeframes to support decision-makers in balancing current crises and longer-term priorities.

The new Global Risks Report from WEF -- trade wars and actual wars top the list. www.weforum.org/publications...

Our highest loyalty doesn't belong to people or parties. It belongs to principles.

If you wouldn't accept it from your opponents, you shouldn't accept it from your allies.

Integrity is standing by your values even when your own group violates them.

The Only War the White House Is Ready for Is Culture War The new U.S. National Security Strategy is a moral and strategic disaster.

"This is a strategy that lacks the imagination to anticipate that other countries are already hedging against U.S. power and could well move to construct a post-American order that shields against U.S. influence." foreignpolicy.com/2025/12/08/t...

Pope: AI won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.
AI: There is no Pope.

yes, this is the path forward. IN a restaurant normally I want to choose what I eat as well, in stead of the chef choosing FOR me. IN those cases where I want to be surprised, I want to CHOOSE to.

we hit 2 billion posts today! 🥳

Why language models hallucinate OpenAI’s new research explains why language models hallucinate. The findings show how improved evaluations can enhance AI reliability, honesty, and safety.

openai.com/index/why-la...

Brain implants that decode a person's inner voice may threaten privacy A new brain-computer interface can decode a person's inner monologue. That could help paralyzed people communicate, but also suggests scientists are one step closer to reading a person's thoughts.

Thought-to-speech implants are getting good enough that they need trigger safe words, or risk blurting out the user's private inner dialogue -- www.npr.org/2025/08/15/n...

Useful to remember than when Silicon Valley CEOs make predictions, they’re generally not predicting what is likely to happen - they’re usually stating what they’d like to happen (or at least, what they’d like other people to think is going to happen).

People With Severe Diabetes Are Cured in Small Trial of New Drug

💥 🍃 🏥 New Stem Cell Therapy Effective for Severe Diabetes (Type 1)
🧪
Single treatment led to reduced or no need for insulin in all 12 patients

New England Journal of Medicine Report
nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2506549
Gift Article NYT

Amazing tool visualizing technological history

• Al Overview The idiom "you can't lick a badger twice" means you can't trick or deceive someone a second time after they've been tricked once. It's a warning that if someone has already been deceived, they are unlikely to fall for the same trick again. Here's a more detailed explanation: • Licking: "Licking" in this context means to trick or deceive someone. • Badger: The badger is a wild animal, and the phrase likely originates from the historical sport of badger baiting where dogs were used to harass

Someone on Threads noticed you can type any random sentence into Google, then add “meaning” afterwards, and you’ll get an AI explanation of a famous idiom or phrase you just made up. Here is mine

Energy demands from AI datacentres to quadruple by 2030, says report The IEA forecast indicates a sharp rise in the requirements of AI, but said threat to the climate was ‘overstated’

Processing data, mainly for AI, will consume more electricity in the US alone by 2030 than manufacturing steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy-intensive goods combined www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Breakthrough in Wild Barley Genomics paves the way for climate-resilient crops An international team of scientists from Australia and China has unveiled the first chromosome-scale genome of a wild barley species.

Breakthrough in Wild Barley Genomics paves the way for climate-resilient crops www.murdoch.edu.au/news/article...

Today, tomorrow, always.

I want to honour the courage of women around the world fighting for their most fundamental rights in the face of adversity.

The EU stands with you, and will continue to so, until equality becomes an enduring reality.

Instead of paralysis due to everything that’s happening, we as Europeans should now figure out what to make of this, project out 5-10 years what the world might look like, and start making decisions to shape outcomes.

Three worlds in 2035: Imagining scenarios for how the world could be transformed over the next decade The Atlantic Council’s top experts brought their globe-spanning expertise to the task of forecasting three different scenarios for the future.

Three scenarios for the geopolitical world of 2035:
www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-seri...

I'm trying out Bluesky, looking for a replacement for another social media site.

I work as an independent consultant and advisor, helping companies, organizations and individuals prepare for the future.

Looking forward to interacting with other people interested in the world and our future.