The AfD was twice as effective at reaching first-time voters on the app than all other parties combined, according to an analysis of platform data. This may explain why the party performed so well among young voters.
Might also be a because of bots and click farms. Platforms boost content that performs well. If a bot farm floods a post with likes, shares and comments then the platform conts that as positive engagement and will show it to more people.
Sure, the algorithms do their part. But here it doesn’t seem to be only explanation. The first study I posted above says, among others:
Throughout the “Others Searched For” data of party and candidate queries, we surprisingly found that many queries did not return any search suggestions. From 60 query terms, the search suggestions for 21 consistently returned no results, as seen in the Table below. This indicates that the platform intervened to specifically disable the search suggestion for these search terms, e.g., through a blocklist. The No Suggestions label was applied to queries “AfD”, “BSW”, “FDP” and “Christlich-Soziale Union” and various political candidates too. Across party affiliation, the AfD and the CSU seem to have the most no-result queries, closely followed by Die Grüne.
Emphasis mine, but it’s just one example. The whole study makes a good read.
Might also be a because of bots and click farms. Platforms boost content that performs well. If a bot farm floods a post with likes, shares and comments then the platform conts that as positive engagement and will show it to more people.
Sure, the algorithms do their part. But here it doesn’t seem to be only explanation. The first study I posted above says, among others:
Emphasis mine, but it’s just one example. The whole study makes a good read.