TikTok experiment reveals how algorithms shape young voters’ political views in Germany
In the run-up to state elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, two 16-year-old girls conducted an experiment that revealed how quickly social media algorithms can shift a feed from apolitical content to far-right political messaging. Greta and Lena, from a village in the north-eastern German state, deleted Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat at the start of the year to curb excessive screen time, but reinstalled TikTok for one month at the request of Deutschlandfunk journalists to observe the political content they would encounter during the election campaign.
Initially, their feed showed non-political videos such as recipes, tomato growing and AI clips. Within minutes, however, political content appeared, beginning with a video about former East German communist politician Erich Honecker. “Why am I seeing so much stuff about the GDR here?” Greta recalled thinking. Soon after, they came across a video featuring Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). “I feel as if it is constantly just AfD,” Greta said, noting she had not searched for such content in advance.
Algorithms reinforce political divide
Over the following month, the girls kept a diary of their feed and observed that after political videos appeared, similar content multiplied—from parties themselves and from accounts that amplified their messages. The experiment confirmed that TikTok and other networks can rapidly shape the political world young people see and the views they adopt. This algorithmic effect is seen as accelerating a global trend of political division between young women and men, reflected in the German state election results. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to vote for the first time, and the AfD swept the state, as it had two weeks prior in Saxony-Anhalt.
