Nature Study Finds X’s Default Feed Shifts Users Toward Conservative Views
A seven-week randomized test on 4,965 U.S. users reports increased exposure to right-leaning posts with lasting follow-network changes.
Overview
- Users assigned to the For You feed became 4.7 percentage points more likely to prioritize Republican-favored issues and were more likely to view criminal investigations into Donald Trump as unacceptable.
- Participants exposed to the algorithm reported more pro-Russia-leaning views on the war in Ukraine, including a 7.4 percentage point drop in favorability toward Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
- Switching from algorithmic to chronological produced no comparable shifts, and there was no significant effect on affective polarization or self-reported partisanship in either direction.
- Content analysis found the algorithm raised the share of right-leaning material by about 2.9 percentage points overall and reduced posts from traditional news outlets while boosting political activists.
- Exposure led users to follow more conservative activist accounts, and those new follows persisted after returning to a chronological feed, a pattern now fueling renewed calls for algorithmic transparency and oversight.