Arguing With People on X May Get You More Posts You Hate as Algo Feeds on Ragebait

In brief

• X amplified posts that were less aligned with users’ stated values in a study of 715 U.S. users.
• The correlation between amplified content and stated values was -0.229 for Democrats, compared with -0.041 for Republicans.
• Replies to posts that clash with users’ values may cause X to recommend more of the same, researchers said.

Arguing with people on X may be teaching the platform to show you more posts you hate.

A new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that X’s “For You” algorithm amplified content that clashed with users’ stated values, particularly among Democrats.

“Social media feed algorithms rank content that is purported to be preferred by users, but the engagement behaviors that drive these algorithms are (at best) indirect proxies for users’ explicitly self-stated values,” the researchers wrote.

According to the report, researchers from MIT, the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and Yale studied 715 active U.S. X users in September and October 2024. Participants installed a browser extension that collected their “For You” and Following feeds.

X reportedly showed Democrats more content that ran counter to their stated values, while the effect was much weaker for Republicans. The correlation was -0.229 for Democrats and -0.041 for Republicans, with more negative numbers indicating greater misalignment. Across all users, amplified content scored -0.150, while posts from accounts they chose to follow generally aligned with their values.