Reducing 'Like-Minded' Facebook Content Does Not Reduce Polarization, Studies Find
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Exposing Facebook users to less content that aligns with their beliefs does not significantly reduce political polarization, a new study found.
The Details: The study is one of four released Thursday, the product of a partnership between Facebook owner Meta and researchers at over a dozen universities. Using internal company data, the researchers found that while “exposure to content from cross-cutting sources” is rare on Facebook, “extreme echo chamber patterns” are also infrequent.
Resilient Polarization: In an experiment involving 23,377 users, researchers “reduced exposure to content from like-minded sources during the 2020 US presidential election by about one-third.” While these users saw more “cross-cutting” content and less “uncivil language,” researchers found no measurable change in politically polarized attitudes.
Ideological Segregation: Another study found that Facebook was “far more” ideologically segregated than previous research had found. Researchers found “a substantial corner of the news ecosystem” was “consumed exclusively by conservatives; and most misinformation, as identified by Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program, exists within this homogeneously conservative corner, which has no equivalent on the liberal side.”
How the Media Covered It: Coverage was common on the left and center but seemingly absent from most right-rated sources. Left-rated sources often noted the findings about conservatives viewing most content flagged as false.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Center
Tweaking Facebook feeds is no easy fix for polarization, studies find![AllSides Media Bias Rating: Center AllSides Media Bias Rating: Center](https://www.allsides.com/sites/default/files/bias-center.png)
![](https://www.allsides.com/sites/default/files/styles/feature_image_300x200/public/d41586-023-02420-z_25848646.jpg?itok=jViMt0Hl)
Landmark research suggests that tweaking how people access news and other content on social-media platforms — to reduce the echo-chamber effect — doesn’t necessarily change their political opinions, knowledge or behaviour.
The findings are the work of dozens of scholars who were given unprecedented access to an extensive trove of user data from Facebook and Instagram; both platforms are part of Meta (formerly Facebook), based in Menlo Park, California. With the company’s cooperation, the researchers also conducted multiple experiments that altered how tens of thousands of people received and shared political news...
From the Left
Facebook opened its doors to researchers. What they found paints a complicated picture of social media and echo chambers.![AllSides Media Bias Rating: Lean Left AllSides Media Bias Rating: Lean Left](https://www.allsides.com/sites/default/files/bias-leaning-left.png)
![](https://www.allsides.com/sites/default/files/styles/feature_image_300x200/public/230726-facebook-politics-lr-7af879.jpg?itok=ktc5M2zk)
A landmark study of how Facebook shaped the news users saw in the run-up to the 2020 election has found the platform resulted in “significant ideological segregation” in regard to political news exposure — specifically with conservative users who researchers found were more walled off and encountered far more misinformation than their liberal counterparts.
Looking at aggregated data from 208 million U.S. users, researchers found “untrustworthy” news sources were favored by conservative audiences and almost all (97%) of the political news webpages rated as false by Meta’s third-party fact-checkers were...
From the Center
Does Facebook Polarize Users? Meta Disagrees With Partners Over Research Conclusions![AllSides Media Bias Rating: Center AllSides Media Bias Rating: Center](https://www.allsides.com/sites/default/files/bias-center.png)
A multiyear research collaboration between Meta Platforms and a group of scholars about social media’s effects on politics stumbled into a disagreement over the conclusions before the results were even announced.
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July 09 at 6am PT / 9am ET State Business ExecutivesMore News about Polarization from the Left, Center and Right
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