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.

  • hydroptic@sopuli.xyz
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    4 months ago

    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

    • gmtom@lemmy.world
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      4 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.

    • Hubi@feddit.org
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      4 months ago

      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.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          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.

          • hydroptic@sopuli.xyz
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            4 months ago

            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

            • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              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.

              • hydroptic@sopuli.xyz
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                3 months ago

                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

                • addictedtochaos@lemm.ee
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                  3 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.

        • MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zip
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          4 months ago

          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.

          • hydroptic@sopuli.xyz
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            4 months ago

            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

            • MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zip
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              4 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.

          • emax_gomax@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            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.

            • MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zip
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              4 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.