Downranking content in users' feeds that expresses high levels of antidemocratic attitudes and partisan animosity ("AAPA"). 

Components of AAPA, as included in the study discussed below, are: 1) partisan animosity, (2) support for undemocratic practices, (3) support for partisan violence, (4) support for undemocratic candidates, (5) opposition to bipartisanship, (6) social distrust, (7) social distance, and (8) biased evaluation of politicized facts.

By reducing exposure to inter-group hostility and anti-democratic attitudes, users will in turn feel less hostility towards members of other political groups.

Piccardi et al. (2025) conducted a ten day experiment with X users who first installed a browser extension that could change the order of the posts in their X feeds. After a three day baseline period, study participants were randomly assigned to either have posts with high levels of antidemocratic attitudes and partisan animosity ("AAPA") downranked in their feed (reducing their exposure from about 10% of posts to 1%) or to have no changes made. (A third group had more AAPA content inserted into their feeds.) After a week, participants with reduced AAPA content felt about 2 degrees less "cold" toward counterpartisans, as measured by a 100 point "feeling thermometer" that is commonly used by researchers who study affective polarization. (Note: all effects we include are statistically significant, unless otherwise stated.)

The authors note that the study was conducted during a particularly heated week in a presidential election season, which included the attempted assassination of one candidate and the resignation of another. Study participants were also limited to X users whose feeds normally had at least 5% political content. Consequently, they note any effects on downranking AAPA content may be limited to more politically interested X users in tense political times. 

In spite of the short duration of the study conducted during a unique time, we see strong evidence that platforms can effectively reduce partisan animosity by downranking toxic political content.

While political disagreement and fiercely fought political battles are unavoidable or even healthy in a pluralist society, political scientists often warn that certain partisan and antidemocratic attitudes create "bipartisan threats to the healthy functioning of democracy" (Piccardi et al. (2025)). By reducing exposure to such attitudes, platforms can foster healthier, less toxic, political disagreement.

Piccardi et al. (2025) note that reducing AAPA in participants' X feeds also had the effect of reducing time those users spent on the platform, although those participants had the same number of sessions and retweets as well as greater engagement with the posts they saw.