Political biases stem from the social interactions of our accounts -- we receive content closely aligned with whatever our online friends produce, especially our very first online friends, finds a study. The study, led by a team at US' Indiana University, argues that online social media platforms such as Twitter may not be promoting or intentionally favouring and amplifying liberal content and users while suppressing other political content.

On the contrary, it showed that political biases on Twitter favour conservative content. "Our main finding is that the information Twitter users see in their news feed depends on the political leaning of their earliest connections," said Filippo Menczer, from the Observatory on Social Media (OSoMe) at IU Bloomington. "We found no evidence of intentional interference by the platform. Instead, bias can be explained by the use, and abuse, of the platform by its users," Menczer added. The study is published online in the journal Nature Communications.