Why social media algorithms send you posts you don’t like

Algorithms on X tend to bring you posts that contradict your values, and it happens more to Democrats than Republicans.

By: Ziv Epstein, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Farnaz Jahanbakhsh, University of Michigan, and Michael Bernstein, Stanford University, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: August 20, 2026

Words: 1,083

Last Updated: 2 months ago

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By Ziv Epstein, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Farnaz Jahanbakhsh, University of Michigan, and Michael Bernstein, Stanford University

Do your social media accounts feed you content that reflects your core beliefs and guiding principles? Our new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the algorithms supplying your feeds may be prioritizing content that clashes with your values. That’s because the algorithms heavily weigh online posts that you reply to, …

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