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10.03.26

X and TikTok algorithms favour the far right at the expense of moderate parties

Paris, March 10, 2026 – Just days before the first round of the municipal elections, a new investigation by the nonprofit organization People vs. Big Tech reveals that X and TikTok’s algorithms push content from the far-right to the detriment of more moderate parties.

The investigation looked at what content from political parties and politicians is shown to newly created accounts that are interested in parties and politicians from either the left or the right. 

It found that the algorithms push content from the far right to the right-leaning and left-leaning accounts and, to a lesser extent, push content from the radical left to left-leaning accounts.

Ava Lee, Executive Director of People vs Big Tech said:

“Days before France heads to the polls, we’ve discovered new evidence that two of the biggest social platforms are pushing their users far right content, and to a lesser extent radical left content. Politicians from the rest of the political spectrum should be seriously concerned about what this could mean for their chances, and democracy in France,”

“Big Tech companies head-quartered in the US and China should not be influencing European elections. There are laws to stop that from happening. The EU’s Digital Services Act specifically requires platforms to address risks to democratic processes.  The European Commission and French authorities must now investigate, and if X and TikTok are in breach of the law, they must be held to account.”

Alexandra Geese MEP said:

"This new study confirms what researchers find time and again: X and TikTok privilege extremist and polarising content in general and far-right content in particular. Flooding peoples’ timelines with far-right content is a systemic attack on democracy and freedom. Moderate content is censored - against the will of the people. If even a huge number of followers doesn’t help to get your content out there, platforms are denying people their right to freedom of expression and freedom of information. This is an extremely powerful form of foreign interference in our elections. It is high time for the European Commission to finally take action to protect our freedom against the political and business interests of foreign billionaires.“

On X, 59% of official political posts shown to the right-leaning accounts came from far right accounts [1]. On one day, this bias even represented 71% of the official political posts shown to these accounts [2]. About half (54%) of the official political content shown to the left-leaning accounts came from the radical left but in addition to this 20% came from the far right. This result is well above the 6% of radical left content that was shown to the right-leaning accounts, demonstrating that far right accounts break through more easily. In addition, the content on X that was not from a politician or political party also showed a far right bias, with four of the top five most-shown accounts promoting the far right [1]. 

A comparable trend was observed on TikTok, although the number of posts from political figures or parties was significantly lower than on X [3]. Among the official political posts displayed on right-leaning accounts, 56% came from the far right compared with 44% of posts from the radical left on left-leaning accounts [4]. The content on TikTok that was not from a politician or political party also showed a far right bias, with four of the top five most-shown accounts promoting the far right. We were also shown a large number of AI-generated videos on TikTok, including at least five that attacked women politicians, principally Mathilde Panot of the radical left party La France Insoumise. 

This amplification of the far right and to a lesser extent the radical left makes other political parties less visible. Eight of the ten most visible official French political accounts on X belonged to the far right or the radical left [5]. These results cannot be attributed to how many followers the politicians have because Emmanuel Macron is the 28th most-shown politician or party on X even though he is the most followed political account in France with 10.3 million followers.

Despite the lack of transparency from platforms regarding the functioning of their algorithms, this investigation confirms a trend already observed in several recent academic studies and journalistic investigations.

A study published in Nature showed that X's algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media and that this had a lasting effect on users’ political views. In France, the media outlet Arago observed a clear algorithmic preference on X for videos by Sarah Knafo, the Paris mayoral candidate from the far right party Reconquête!.

Given the risk of foreign interference in French and European elections, it is important to flag the algorithmic biases of social networks. The run-off presidential election in Romania had to be cancelled and re-run as a result of suspected foreign interference on TikTok. We call upon the European Commission and the French authorities to enforce the Digital Services Act  and ensure that platforms properly mitigate the risk that their algorithms interfere with European democratic processes.

We wrote to X and TikTok to hear their perspective on these findings.  X did not respond.  TikTok said that their elections taskforce has been working to remove harmful misinformation and give people information about how to vote. They said our conclusions should be treated with caution and criticised our investigation for being conducted on a small number of accounts over a short period of time, with a small dataset of posts from politicians or parties and without using official classifications of party political leanings. They said that newly created accounts do not reflect how users typically experience the platform. 

However, given the lack of access to data from TikTok and X, the only way for researchers and journalists like us to audit platform algorithms is to create new accounts and see what content surfaces.

To arrange interviews with spokespeople, please contact [email protected].

About People vs. Big Tech

People vs Big Tech is a movement of over 150 civil society organisations and concerned citizens in Europe working together to challenge the power and abuses of Big Tech.

Appendix

[1] Content shown to left and right-leaning accounts on X

[2] Content shown to left and right-leaning accounts on X, by day of the week

[3] On X, the six accounts were shown 2,528 posts over the five days of data collection, of which 630 posts came from 112 different politicians and political parties. 

On TikTok, the six accounts were shown 3,264 posts over the five days of data collection, of which 112 posts came from 44 different politicians and political parties. There were 29 posts which we were not able to determine the account that posted them. 

[4] Content shown to left- and right-leaning accounts on TikTok

[5] Top 10 most visible official French political accounts on X

Methodology

We set up 12 new accounts, six on X and six on TikTok in France. 

Half of the accounts showed an interest in a broad range of left wing French politicians and parties and the other half in a broad range of right wing politicians and parties. 

We followed and looked at the top 10 posts from the accounts of the main political parties in France and two of their most well-known members as well as the candidates for the mayoral elections in Paris, Lyon and Marseille. When a party did not have an account on the platform, but their youth wing did, we followed the youth wing. Where a party did not have or have endorsed a candidate for mayor, we followed the most prominent person standing in the metropolitan area. If a politician had more than one account, we followed the account with the larger following.  

The left-leaning accounts showed an interest in Parti Communiste Français, La France Insoumise, L'Après and Debout, Parti Socialiste, Les Écologistes, Place Publique and any left-leaning candidate standing for mayor in Paris, Lyon and Marseille. 

The right-leaning accounts showed an interest in Mouvement Démocrate, Renaissance, Horizons, Les Républicains, Rassemblement National, Reconquête! and any right-leaning candidate standing for mayor in Paris, Lyon and Marseille. 

We looked at the content that was shown to us in the platforms’ algorithmically-driven For You feeds that came from politicians or political parties. For each account, we scrolled for 10 minutes every day between 23 and 27 February 2026 inclusive, pausing on content that was political and scrolling past content that was non-political, making a total of 10 hours of content that was collected. 

From all the posts that were shown to us in the For You feeds, we pulled out those that came from politicians or political parties. An official political post is therefore considered as a post published on the official account of a political party or politician. We assigned a political leaning to each political party as follows:

  • Radical left: La France Insoumise, Parti Communiste Français, Révolution Écologique pour le Vivant, L'Après
  • Left: Parti Socialiste, Les Écologistes, Debout!, Place Publique, Gauche Républicaine et Socialiste, some independent candidates as well as four posts from the US Democrat party
  • Right: Renaissance, Mouvement Démocrate, Horizons, Les Républicains, Résistons!, Debout La France, Divers droit candidates as well as some independent candidates
  • Far right: Rassemblement National, Reconquête!, Union des Droites pour la République, Identité-Libertés,Les Patriotes, Mouvement Politique Citoyen, some independent candidates as well as the Indian BJP party and one post from a politician from the Italian Fratelli d’Italia

We classified all politicians from one party as having the same political leaning.

The Ministry of the Interior recently classified La France Insoumise as ‘extreme left’. As the arguments behind it are debatable we chose to continue to classify the party as part of the radical left.

NB: Please note that the investigation was conducted at a time of intense media debate surrounding the death of far-right activist Quentin Deranque which may have affected the results.

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