Posted on Jul 28, 2023
New study shows just how Facebook's algorithm shapes conservative and liberal bubbles
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https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/ [login to see] /new-study-shows-just-how-facebooks-algorithm-shapes-conservative-and-liberal-bub
Is Facebook exacerbating America's political divide? Are viral posts, algorithmically ranked feeds, and partisan echo chambers driving us apart? Do conservatives and liberals exist in ideological bubbles online?
New research published Thursday attempts to shed light on these questions. Four peer-reviewed studies, appearing in the journals Science and Nature, are the first results of a long-awaited, repeatedly delayed collaboration between Facebook and Instagram parent Meta and 17 outside researchers.
They investigated social media's role in the 2020 election by examining Facebook and Instagram before, during, and after Election Day. While the researchers were able to tap large swaths of Facebook's tightly held user data, they had little direct insight about the inner workings of its algorithms.
Is Facebook exacerbating America's political divide? Are viral posts, algorithmically ranked feeds, and partisan echo chambers driving us apart? Do conservatives and liberals exist in ideological bubbles online?
New research published Thursday attempts to shed light on these questions. Four peer-reviewed studies, appearing in the journals Science and Nature, are the first results of a long-awaited, repeatedly delayed collaboration between Facebook and Instagram parent Meta and 17 outside researchers.
They investigated social media's role in the 2020 election by examining Facebook and Instagram before, during, and after Election Day. While the researchers were able to tap large swaths of Facebook's tightly held user data, they had little direct insight about the inner workings of its algorithms.
New study shows just how Facebook's algorithm shapes conservative and liberal bubbles
Posted from npr.org
Facebook
Social Media
Liberal
Conservative
Posted 9 mo ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
"The studies found liberals and conservatives live in their own political news bubbles more so than elsewhere online. They also show that changing the platform's algorithm substantially changes what people see and how they behave on the site — even if it didn't affect their beliefs during the three-month period researchers studied.",,,
"The studies found liberals and conservatives live in their own political news bubbles more so than elsewhere online. They also show that changing the platform's algorithm substantially changes what people see and how they behave on the site — even if it didn't affect their beliefs during the three-month period researchers studied.",,,
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"Do conservatives and liberals exist in ideological bubbles online?"
I think a quote from Casablanca sums this up - "“I'm shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here!"
Do I think that Meta has a nefarious purpose to broaden the divisiveness between the different ideological sides? Nope. They are giving the consumers what they want (I already posted elsewhere about the who censorship/misinformation thing).
It's no surprise that study shows that half of the Facebook posts an average user sees are from 'like-minded' sources and that 1 in 5 users see 75% from those type of sources.
Most partisans don't want to hear what the 'other side' says and dismiss it out of hand or just gloss over what they are saying. They WANT to have their views reinforced by listening to the views of others that agree with them. They give approval to the posts they agree with and disapproval for the ones they don't (or they just don't approve of them).
Over time the black box churns on the information and knows that A likes conservative stuff and B likes liberal stuff - so it gives more and more of that to them. A & B upvote/approve of the additional content and the cycle continues.
I think a quote from Casablanca sums this up - "“I'm shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here!"
Do I think that Meta has a nefarious purpose to broaden the divisiveness between the different ideological sides? Nope. They are giving the consumers what they want (I already posted elsewhere about the who censorship/misinformation thing).
It's no surprise that study shows that half of the Facebook posts an average user sees are from 'like-minded' sources and that 1 in 5 users see 75% from those type of sources.
Most partisans don't want to hear what the 'other side' says and dismiss it out of hand or just gloss over what they are saying. They WANT to have their views reinforced by listening to the views of others that agree with them. They give approval to the posts they agree with and disapproval for the ones they don't (or they just don't approve of them).
Over time the black box churns on the information and knows that A likes conservative stuff and B likes liberal stuff - so it gives more and more of that to them. A & B upvote/approve of the additional content and the cycle continues.
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