Young or old. TikTok or X. Pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian. Your social media feeds are unique to you. Could they be shaping how you view the Israel-Gaza war? When I open up my TikTok feed, two videos play one after the other. The first shows four Israeli soldiers dancing with guns, set against a blue sky. The other is a young woman speaking from her bedroom, with a prominent pro-Palestinian caption.
TikTok's algorithm will determine what kind of videos I want to see and recommend similar content, based on which of the two videos I watch until the end. The algorithms work in a similar way for other social media platforms too and it means some users are being driven towards increasingly divisive content about Israel and Gaza that only entrench their existing views and biases. It matters because conversations on social media can shape public opinion - and normalise rhetoric that spills offline, at protests and beyond. That includes the UK, where social media seems to have encouraged many people who are not normally politically active, to take actio