Dapper Jabber and sometimes "S L Koch"

@dapperjabber.bsky.social

MLM queerdo wierdo occultist chaos mage, bizarro horror storyteller author, trans-dimensional artist, loving cheerleader, comedian, mockery of this twisted and fowl world, poverty stricken and sobbing terrified in the corner

A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right. Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement. This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.

The political effects of X's feed algorithm
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2
Received: 16 December 2024
Accepted: 4 January 2026
Published online: 18 February 2026
Open access
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Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m
Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects.
Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

"What’s rotten at the top filters its way down. Which is why ICE agents feel emboldened to shoot pastors in the head. They know no action they take is too extreme for their boss, dog murderer Kristi Noem, or her boss, Jeffrey Epstein murderer Donald Trump." michaelianblack.substack.com/p/pardon-moi

Pardon Moi

Even I had to shake my head at the news that Trump commuted the sentence of former congressman George Santos this evening.

michaelianblack.substack.com

You are fantastic. You are a witch's favorite spell. You are a mushroom sprite party in a Victorian dollhouse. You are a Hieronymus Bosch painting of a ghost train ride. You are a troupe of bioluminescent octopi performing a stage show based on Tom Bombadil's nightmares.

So I have nearly completed the 15 year rerelease of one of my first novels and my publisher has dropped off the face of the Earth. I need to figure out how to get an editor to go over the book and get it published but I have no inroads with any publishers. The business side of writing is a nightmare

Someone told me that AT DARK, I BECOME LOATHSOME felt like a gay snuff film in book form and they felt dirty after reading it… That’s honestly the quickest way to melt my heart 😭❤️

Eric holding up a hardcover copy of AT DARK, I BECOME LOATHSOME while seated at a small table covered with some of his other published books