If you open X or TikTok right now, you might be convinced that the VP Kamala Harris will win the presidential election in a landslide. Donald Trump’s lead is disappearing, even in red states, the people say, pointing to fringe polls and alleged quotes from inside the campaign. Florida and Texas turn blue. More women and young people registered to vote. And some believe the stars are aligning and the astrological signs point to her eventual ascension to the top job.

Or, depending on what your feed looks like, you might see that Trump has this one in the bag. These believers cite a deluge of MAGA hats in California, or a phalanx of kids dressed as Trump (and, disturbingly, Trump’s potential assassin) for Halloween in blue Philadelphia. Or that there is less support for Harris among certain demographics in swing states compared to when the president Joe Biden won in 2020. New Hampshire and Virginia turn red. Even X owner and Trump megadonor Elon Musk extrapolates and frames early voting data to prematurely declare that prized swing state Pennsylvania “will be a decisive Republican victory.”

In an election cycle where national and swing state polls have been neck and neck for weeks, voters are turning to X and TikTok to declare with confidence that their candidate will win decisively. It’s a response to a time of extreme anxiety and uncertainty, when Americans are more polarized than ever and have been told that “this will be the last election” if their candidate doesn’t win. There are maps covered in blue and opposites covered in red, with Electoral College predictions swinging wildly. “Harris is about to win in a blowout,” says one. Others, including Musk, point to an electoral map based on Polymarket election betting odds, rather than polls, as evidence that Trump will win. Each individual post might not be so meaningful – if it weren’t for powerful algorithms on TikTok and X that relentlessly push such posts to others.

This is the type of content that social site algorithms have long loved. Social media conversations tend to cluster around extremes. People on the farthest ends of the ideological spectrum are the most likely to post their opinions on social media, a 2021 study by the Pew Research Center found. Social platform algorithms reward “this strong belief and extreme opinions and generate extreme reactions,” says Ioana Literat, associate professor at Columbia University Teachers College and co-author of “Not Your Parents’ Politics: Understanding Young People’s Political Expression on Social Media. ” “If there’s a video that says ‘The polls are too close to tell,’ that’s not going to be the post that’s going to get the most likes.”

While algorithms are partly to blame, we also have a deeply human aversion to uncertainty. To quiet the noise, we surround ourselves with others who trust that our common candidate will win.

Other social platforms have tried to break free from this kind of divisive political discourse. In 2016, there was an amazing political dialogue on Facebook, where your opinionated uncle posted misinformation with abandon. In recent years, Meta has removed news from Facebook feeds. And earlier this year, the company made other moves to reduce the focus on political content on Instagram, Facebook and Threads. All this follows accusations that Facebook has practically “destroyed democracy”, as Megan Smith, the former chief technology officer of the United States, put it. Despite efforts to change, deceptive political ads are still rampant on Facebook and Instagram, ProPublica reported this week. “Meta’s enforcement systems had already detected and disabled a large number of Pages – and we reviewed and took action against the rest of these Pages for various policy violations,” Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton said in a statement to ProPublica.

Since the 2016 and 2020 elections, the political reach of both X and TikTok has grown. A recent one Washington Post analysis of X published this week found that Republican leaders are gaining followers and going viral more often since Musk took over the platform. A Wall Street Journal analysis found that newly created X accounts were often fed political content, even if they signed up looking for other topics, and that content leaned more toward pro-Trump sentiment. (X did not respond to a request for comment for this story.) Meanwhile, half of 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed by the Pew Research Center say they watch political content on TikTok. A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment for this story, but directed me to a webpage that says TikTok’s policy is to label “unverified election claims, make them ineligible for recommendation and ask people to reconsider before distributing them”.

Overconfident rhetoric isn’t just polarizing; could have more dangerous implications. “If one side expects the race to be a blowout and the other side to win, that sets the stage for broad support to challenge the results,” says Sol Messing, associate research professor at the Center for Social Media and New York University. Politics. (Messing previously worked for Twitter, but says he volunteered to be fired when Musk bought the platform in 2022 and refused to part ways to avoid signing a non-disparagement agreement.) “Parts of this could reflect that strategy broader, far-right,” he added.

On X, there is now an electoral integrity community, launched by Musk’s America PAC in late October. Here, people are encouraged to “share potential incidents of voter fraud or irregularities you see while voting in the 2024 election” — observations they would typically report to official government agencies for investigation. Many of the recent posts show clear support for Trump in their claims of vote fraud and interference: On Thursday, a user posted photos of what appeared to be ballots from Ohio with Trump’s name misspelled. But election officials say they did I have not seen such ballots.

While Trump has repeatedly said the only way he would lose is through voter fraud, many posts by the candidates and their celebrity supporters don’t express the same stunning confidence we see in the feeds. Ads for Harris on Instagram implore people to get out the vote and donate more money, calling it a “hands on deck moment.” Michelle Obama says the race “is too close” and “we have to give it everything we’ve got.” And even Trump is back to posting on X, urging people to vote early — a change from 2020, when he demonized mail-in voting.

No one on social media has an answer to what will happen in Tuesday’s election. Eagerly reposting or appreciating election content may be all we can do as the clock ticks down. “We know it’s a time of great anxiety,” says Literat. “This is certainly shaped by context. But it’s also that content that really provides certainty or resonates with hope or fear that spreads even faster.” For now, the best way to ease that anxiety might be to ditch social media until Tuesday.

Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent for Business Insider covering the technology industry. She writes about the biggest companies and technology trends.

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