P A Martin Börjesson

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.

Får patent på att simulera avlidna på Facebook Nytt patent använder AI för att låta avlidna fortsätta skriva på sociala medier. Metas teknikchef står bakom ansökan.

Full on Black Mirror detta. www.dn.se/ekonomi/far-...

När dysfunktion egentligen är övermognad En reflekterande text om varför innovation och kulturförändring ofta missar problemet, och varför exnovation är en nödvändig förmåga i mogna organisationer.

När dysfunktion egentligen är övermognad

En reflekterande text om varför innovation och kulturförändring ofta missar problemet, och varför exnovation är en nödvändig förmåga i mogna organisationer.

Everyone wants a village, but no one wants to be a villager. There is a paradox quietly eating away at contemporary life, and you have likely felt it yourself.

An important text about the mechanisms of social deterioration open.substack.com/pub/kasperbe...

Texas A&M Bans Plato (with updates) | Christian Munthe My colleague, the Swedish professor of philosophy at Texas A&M University, Martin Peterson, has been banned by the university to teach Plato. https://lnkd.in/dENEZUV6 #TexasAMUniversity #philosophy ...

Thinking about Plato's criticism of democracy - that it opens up for tyranny...

www.linkedin.com/posts/christ...

When Nature Changes Its State

I have been trying to understand why so much feels unstable lately. Not just politically or economically, but at a deeper level that is harder to name. What if this unease is not primarily a sign of systems failing, but of conditions shifting beneath them — and of us…

När maskinerna avslöjar oss själva Eftersom jag tyvärr inte kunde vara med på Learning Forum i år läste jag in en text med ursprung i en artikel. Baserat på Sokrates kritik av skriften och hur språkmodeller nu behärskar text bättre än vi själva får vi syn på att vi själva kanske inte längre är människor utan textmaskiner. I mötet med AI ser vi därför inte främst en ny intelligens, utan bara spegelbilden av oss själva - den textuellt mekaniserade människan.

När maskinerna avslöjar oss själva

Eftersom jag tyvärr inte kunde vara med på Learning Forum i år läste jag in en text med ursprung i en artikel. Baserat på Sokrates kritik av skriften och hur språkmodeller nu behärskar text bättre än vi själva får vi syn på att vi själva kanske inte längre är…

Det är hjärnvägarna som formar den värld järnvägarna byggs för Vi talar fortfarande om infrastruktur som om framtiden formas av vägar, järnvägar och energisystem. Men i en tid av samhällelig metamorfos börjar infrastrukturen flytta in i något mycket djupare – i våra föreställningar om världen. Det är rötterna som förändras nu, inte grenarna.

Det är hjärnvägarna som formar den värld järnvägarna byggs för

Vi talar fortfarande om infrastruktur som om framtiden formas av vägar, järnvägar och energisystem. Men i en tid av samhällelig metamorfos börjar infrastrukturen flytta in i något mycket djupare – i våra föreställningar om världen. Det…

BANI-boken är här: Navigating the Age of Chaos

Sedan Jamais Cascio lanserade begreppet BANI 2018 har det hjälpt många ledare att sätta ord på den ökande känslan av bräcklighet, ångest och oförutsägbarhet i vår tid. Även om BANI inte beskriver själva förändringen – utan dess symptom ger hans nya…

From managing chaos to acting on what is emerging

What if our experience of crisis — whether described as a polycrisis or metacrisis, or as brittleness and non-linearity in the language of BANI — are not the causes of our instability, but symptoms of a deeper transformation? Not a transition, but…

Four questions that open a philosophical abyss – What LLMs reveal about thought, language, being, and meaning We did not intend to create a philosopher. We built a tool to complete our sentences. And yet, here we are. Staring into the language it gives back to us, wondering who, or what, is really speaking…

Does Philosophy Eat AI as Michael Schrage argues (www.youtube.com/watch?v=59t6...)? Or is it the other way around – that AI Eats Philosophy? www.futuramb.se/blog/four-qu...

Four questions that open a philosophical abyss What LLMs reveal about thought, language, being, and meaning

Pondering about what language models really are force me to go deeper... open.substack.com/pub/navigati...

Causal Layered Analysis - att förändra vår syn på verkligheten - P A Martin Börjessons sida Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) hjälper oss förstå och omformulera komplexa problem genom att analysera symptom, system, världsbild och metafor

Många av de utmaningar vi har beror på att lever i en tid när det är själva förutsättningarna – tankeramarna – som förändras. CLA är ett av de få ramverk som kan hjälpa oss få syn på våra egna låsande ramverk och kalibrera om våra perspektiv.

www.futuramb.se/causal-layer...

AI as an Ecology Transforming Invasive Species? What actually happens when something foreign not only enters a system – but begins to reshape the system itself? Isn’t this precisely what we feel AI (or what is popularly called AI) is doing…

Trying to formulate something about the idea of AI as an invasive species rather than a technology
- www.futuramb.se/blog/ai-as-a...

Nero just burned the city of Rome...

Study Finds Dungeons & Dragons Boosts Mental Health Researchers found that playing Dungeons & Dragons benefits mental health by providing escapism, self-exploration, and social support.

We often talk about gaming’s cognitive benefits, but what about its social impact? What’s the best way to communicate research on play, games and social development? #SciComm #ScienceCommunication

www.psychiatrist.com/news/study-f...

Beware the Intention Economy: Collection and Commodification of Intent via Large Language Models

When we interact with AI like ChatGPT, more intimate data about us and our intentions is collected. Researchers warn: without regulation, our motives could become the new currency. What happens when our intentions turn into commodities? #AI #DataPrivacy hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/ujvharkk...

Misinformation isn't random - it's strategic. 🧵

In the first cross-national comparative study, we examine 32M tweets from politicians.

We find that misinformation is not a general condition: it is driven by populist radical right parties.

with @julianachueri.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1177/1940...

Kriget i Ukraina och den pågående samhällstransformationen - P A Martin Börjessons sida Min RISE-kollega Carl Heath höll igår (2025-01-12) ett mycket bra anförande på Folk och Försvar som jag rekommenderar varmt. Med en lång rad exempel från både Rysslands hybridkrigföring i Europa och C...

Lyssna på @carlheath.se och fundera på hur vi tänker på ledarskapets roll. Speciellt i detta säkerhetsläge, men utmaningen finns över allt. www.futuramb.se/kriget-i-ukr...

I don't understand why so many still promote scenarios and tech forecasts when we are even further in to BANI-land where the world is Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear and deeply Incomprehensible?

That is true... but they also seems to have a different way of governing and incentivizing companies and individuals. Most of it seems a bit unresearched since most documents are written i Chinese.

Yup, Sweden seems to be a bit better.

And, yes, the focus on tech boom and is prime movers is obvious... which widens the picture to the whole initial public funding of early research and its military connections.

But why is China relevant? The global trade is increasingly organized in blocks...

When commenting the recent Draghi report and it's task force agenda, Andrew McAfee put together this visualization showing the state of EU vs the European "Public From-Scratch Companies less than 50 years old".

A telling visualization!

geekway.substack.com/p/a-visualiz...

Reposting a deeper insight of life we need to think about now and then...

Is this a signal of societal change or what??

I believe it describes how EVERYTHING emerges in organic contexts... but NEVER how the process is described afterwards because of our linearly working brains.

When thinking about current crises, turbulence and deeper transitions today I think it is important to reflect about that our views of the past are linear descriptions of something similarly chaotic...

Decapitation Strike Preserving America from Trump's Appointments

Tim Snyder:
"These proposed appointments look like a decapitation strike: destroying the American government from the top, leaving the body politic to rot, and the rest of us to suffer"

"This is no longer a post-electoral moment. It is a pre-catastrophic moment"

snyder.substack.com/p/decapitati...

Surprise