84
Did Facebook fuel political polarization during the 2020 election? It’s complicated.
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
84 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37720 readers
41 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
"Yes" really isn't complicated.
Yeah, doesn't seem complicated to me at all. Their algorithm is programmed to keep people angry, engaged, and convinced 100% that their opinion is right. (no matter what that opinion is.)
Keeps people clicking on shitty ads and buying stupid crap.
Sure it is. Is it Meta's algorithm, is it user reach, is it paid ads, is it channels, is it memes, is it leaning, is it...
Meta is participating in a pretty big study with actual researchers here. I'm no Meta fan, and this is partly for PR I'm sure, but this is a really good thing that more social media companies should do.
Those seem like "how" or "why" questions to me. More complicated. The big one is "how do we prevent" and I bet we won't get an honest answer from big social themselves. That's why there should be independent public research.