Former GOP presidential nominee and current U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) expressed his belief after the Trump-Harris debate that few people in the United States were previously familiar with Vice President Kamala Harris “other than a few clips that were not flattering that you might see on the Internet.”
Romney, a Trump detractor who voted to impeach the former President for his conduct on January 6, contended after the debate that Harris’s performance had done much to reverse the unfavorable impressions he presumes people had of Harris, while filling in the knowledge gap about her with substance and intelligence.
“People saw she’s an intelligent, capable person who has a point of view on issues,” Romney said. “She demonstrated that time and again.”
Romney: This was a classic Trump performance. In the case of Kamala Harris… people saw she's an intelligent, capable person who has a point of view on issues. She demonstrated that time and again. pic.twitter.com/4Lzp2fpmAP
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 11, 2024
Romney gives away a lot in his statement, not least an insight into how algorithms dictate what viewers see on the internet — curating their feeds with content that seeds confirmation bias and encourages pre-existing notions.
In practice, the viewing habits and political preferences of a right wing conservative like Romney help assure that he is unlikely to encounter “flattering” portraits of Harris — even though they exist — because that’s not the kind of content the algorithm has determined Romney wants to see.
Millions of Democrats, by contrast, have an impression of Harris that is not — as Romney’s is — dominated by those “not flattering” Harris video clips he mentions, which tend to surface in the content feeds of Romney and other conservatives, but not for liberals.
Followers of Ted Cruz, Chip Roy or Tulsi Gabbard, for example, will likely not be exposed to more positive portrayals of Harris on video — because it’s not content the algorithm has determined is useful to them.
There are myriad examples of Harris demonstrating professionalism and competence in internet “clips” — yet Romney really is under the impression that most people encounter only “not flattering” impressions of Harris online.
[In the exchange above, partisanship aside, both participants — Harris and SCOTUS Justice Brett Kavanaugh — demonstrate intelligence and capability.]
NOTE: It’s the same algorithmic curation challenge on both sides of the aisle, if not always in equal measure. Left-leaning internet viewers are also highly unlikely to randomly encounter a “flattering” clip featuring a MAGA politician, even if the MAGA politician is espousing views they may share, such as support for Israel or Ukraine.
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