New study shows just how Facebook's algorithm shapes conservative and liberal bubbles
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.
The design of the social media giant's algorithms — a complex set of systems that determine whether you're shown your friend's vacation snapshots or a reshared political meme — have come under increasing in recent years, driven by. Those fears crystallized in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when on Facebook helped facilitate the Jan. 6th Capitol insurrection.
