An Undecided Voter’s Social Media Feeds: Contrasting Content on TikTok and X

Gabriela, a fictional individual in her forties, resides in Miami and identifies as Latina. While not deeply engaged in politics, she expresses concern for the economy and abortion rights. Her voting decision, including whether to vote and for whom, remains undetermined. It is important to note that Gabriela is a fabricated character. Created in 2022, Gabriela is one of five fictional personas designed to observe how social media content targets individuals with varying political perspectives. Her profile is integral to an ongoing experiment conducted for the BBC’s Americast podcast, which examines the potential influence of social media algorithms on voter decisions. As election day nears, the two primary presidential candidates are intensifying their efforts to appeal to undecided and disillusioned voters. This raises the question of how this contest is manifesting across their diverse social media platforms. Some of these “undercover voters,” a term used for the profiles, were established to reflect specific political viewpoints, drawing on data from the Pew Research Centre. In contrast, Gabriela initially demonstrated no political engagement on her social media feeds. However, over the last two years, her feeds have evolved as the recommended content has been observed and interacted with. The process of creating an “undercover voter” involved establishing profiles for Gabriela on prominent social media platforms, including X, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Her accounts were maintained as private, and given her non-political nature, she was set to follow