Social Media and the Israel-Hamas War: Who We Are Listening To? What We See on Social Media After Meta Shutdown and the State of the Art

Williams says that our idea of a communal reality is outdated as technology improves. We are sucked into these worlds on our phone when the real world is right in front of us, according to the results of the election.

Our window into the inner workings of social media has gotten smaller as they have gotten more precise. CrowdTangle, a research tool used to track on Facebook, was shut down by Meta this summer. A public TikTok feature called Creative Center — which allowed advertisers to measure trending hashtags — was abruptly restricted by the company after reporters used it to report on the Israel-Hamas war. It is harder than ever to understand what’s happening on social media, especially outside of our bubbles.

Voters have a variety of places to get hyperpartisan news besides TikTok and it’s not a new phenomenon. There is a tendency to assume that what you see is legitimate if you look around on either the right or left. TikTok brings a false sense of certainty that is even more powerful. What we see on the platform is both uncomfortably personal and incredibly global: a video talking about something that happened on our neighborhood block might be followed up by someone across the country voting for the same candidate for the same reasons. You are receiving a variety of voices and content.

Source: Pro-Harris TikTok felt safe in an algorithmic bubble — until election day

Seeing a Black Woman in a Silo: On the Emergence of a Glock, Not a Perfect Candidate for the White House

Williams was going to a watch party when her confidence began to fall. I know what people are watching on the internet, but I also don’t see a world where a black woman is elected for president right now. In the eight years since the last female presidential candidate, she wondered if that had changed. “You’re seeing all this stuff, and people are getting so excited, but this could be just a mirage.”

From the onset, the Harris campaign seemed to understand the power of these silos. On TikTok, where the Kamala HQ account has 5.7 million followers, an all-Gen Z team of staffers produced video after video that are, at times, indecipherable to the average person. If you watched a video of Harris saying things like “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people” and ” I have a Glock” with a gentle Aphex Twin song as the soundtrack, would you think it was “hopecore”? The campaign bet that it didn’t really matter because the TikTok algorithm would carry it to people who did understand it. And at least to some extent, they were right.

As a person with a degree in engineering, Williams should know better than to be fooled. She was fed TikToks about a bombshell poll showing Harris ahead in Iowa; young women in Pennsylvania going to the polls in support of Harris; analysis about why it was actually going to be a landslide. Professional polls consistently showed a dead heat between Trump and Harris — but watching TikTok after TikTok, it’s easy to shake off any uncertainty. It was a world full of media meant to make you believe that things are better than they really are.

Democrats were hoping that they could communicate their message to followers with the assistance ofAlexis Williams. For the last several years, Williams has made content about politics and social issues and attended the Democratic National Convention this year as a content creator, sharing her reflections with 400,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram. Though Harris wasn’t a perfect candidate in Williams’ eyes, she felt Harris would win the presidency in the days leading up to the election.

Unlike somebody drinking from Musk’s algorithmic fire hose, a young person deep in a pro-Harris TikTok bubble likely wasn’t being fed racist “great replacement” theory stories or false claims about election fraud. Instead, they were probably seeing videos from some of the hundreds of content creators the Democratic Party worked with. Though the direct impact of influencers on electoral politics is difficult to measure, NextGen America’s own research suggests that influencer content may turn out more first-time voters.

“I don’t think we know the full implications of X’s algorithm being rigged to feed us right wing propaganda,” Tzintzún Ramirez of NextGen America says. A recent Washington Post analysis found that right-wing accounts have come to dominate visibility and engagement on X. That includes an algorithmic boost to Musk’s own posts, as the billionaire angles for influence with the incoming administration.

In hindsight, Smith wonders if that was the right thing to do or if a mix of different types of political content may have given her more insight into what the other side was saying, doing, and thinking. She likens it to being a liberal or progressive who consumes news from right-wing outlets like Breitbart or Fox News — not because you agree with the material, but because it’s helpful to know what messages are resonating with other types of voters.

Smith, like other TikTok users, knows that the platform recommends her content based on what she watches, saves, comments on, or likes. Smith purposely didn’t engage when pro-Trump material came across her page.

Source: Pro-Harris TikTok felt safe in an algorithmic bubble — until election day

The Last Stand Before Election: On the Impact of the Internet on the Popular Culture of the New Donald Trump era and its Political Implications

It makes it harder for us to do our job, and it also makes it harder for candidates to do their jobs. She says that news media are now having to inform a public that has many different sources of information.

In the weeks leading up to the US presidential election, Kacey Smith was feeling hopeful. Smith knew that the race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton would be close. But as she scrolled TikTok, she believed Harris would be victorious.

Corinna Kopf was a member of the “Vlog Squad.” She endorsed Trump before the election. Mika Lafuente, a model and influencer, posted a video endorsing Trump along with dance videos, wearing a MAGA hat.

For example, some fans of Scout Dixon West, a perfumer and “cool girl” influencer, have recently criticized her for liking posts from Jessica Reed Kraus, the pro-Trump writer of the House Inhabit newsletter who initially started out as a mom blogger. Kraus could be found all along the campaign trail this cycle with either Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or the Trump campaign.

Soon after Trump’s election, my TikTok For You page became littered with women frustrated that some of their favorite lifestyle influencers of all stripes have either hinted at or announced their support for Trump. They’re sharing lists of “Trumpy” creators in comment sections and posting videos encouraging others to unfollow them as part of what could become a new “Block Out” movement.

It’s not like a typical politics newsletter. Makena Kelly and the WIRED Politics team help you make sense of how the internet is shaping our political reality.

A new style of fandom for Trump was created when his campaign spoke to young men. It seems that Trump 2.0 has a new look as well.

Look to the return of Ralph Lauren, Berman suggests. The use of the farm-to-table-to-Instagram-grid concept in Catholicism could be described as aestheticization. These trends creeped out from the more fringe parts of the internet during the first Trump administration, and have since been legitimized and become more dominant in contemporary culture.

I watched this video over the weekend, and I have been thinking about it ever since. Elysia Berman, a fashion author, claims that the foundations of a second Trump presidency were laid years ago due to quiet luxury, conformity, and old money trends.