New research on Meta — better known as Facebook — seemed to absolve social media sites from responsibility for the nation’s fractured politics. In fact, the new research offers only one sure conclusion: There is no “one weird trick” to fix political polarization.
The experiments, conducted in the months surrounding the 2020 election and with Meta’s permission, showed that changes to the algorithm within that time period did little to alter people’s beliefs. The studies looked at what happens when “reshared” posts are hidden from view; when Instagram and Facebook feeds are displayed in reverse chronological order rather than curated by the algorithm; and when material from “like-minded” sources is reduced by one-third. Attitudes, it turned out, didn’t change much: The anti-immigrant user largely stayed anti-immigrant, while crusaders for covid-19 restrictions lost none of their gusto. The likelihood that users would vote didn’t change, either.
None of this, however, means social media doesn’t matter in the country’s politics. The experimental tweaks did change, considerably, the content to which users were exposed. And one study discovered that, under the standard Facebook setup, Facebook looks dramatically different to liberals and conservatives. Liberals see a mix of sources on the left and right, whereas the news that conservatives see trends ideologically homogenous — more likely to be rated false by the platform’s third-party fact-checkers. Conservatives are, as one researcher put it, “far more siloed in their news sources,” a reality that is “driven in part by algorithmic processes.”
Also, in the experiment in which the researchers reduced material from sources who shared users’ views, the scientists found that those users engaged more with the “like-minded” content that remained.
Together, these findings suggest a possible conclusion less favorable to Meta: When the data for these studies was being collected after months of election-related conversation and years of online habits building and communities coalescing, it was already too late. People’s political beliefs might already have been baked in, with social media sites one of the many actors doing the baking. There’s also no discounting the way living in the world of the like, retweet and viral video has shaped the behavior of politicians and plebeians alike.
The notion that Meta and its peers are solely responsible for national polarization and division has always been a straw man. But the idea that these platforms have nothing to do with our divisions is just as dubious.
Skip to end of carousel
End of carousel- Lawyers plead guilty in racketeering case in Fulton County, Ga.
- The Biden administration announces more than $100 million to improve maternal health.
- Wisconsin Republicans back off impeachment threat against justice.
- Bahrain’s hunger strike ends, for now, after concessions to prisoners.
- A Saudi court sentences a retired teacher to death based on tweets.
Attorneys for Donald Trump have pleaded guilty in the racketeering case led by Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani T. Willis. Even those lawyers related to the deals focused on equipment-tampering in rural Coffee County are relevant to the former president — they help to establish the “criminal enterprise” of which prosecutors hope to prove Mr. Trump was the head. The news is a sign that the courts might be the place where 2020 election lies finally crash upon the rocks of reality. The Editorial Board wrote about the wide range of the indictment in August.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced more than $103 million in funding to address the maternal health crisis. The money will boost access to mental health services, help states train more maternal health providers and bolster nurse midwifery programs. These initiatives are an encouraging step toward tackling major gaps in maternal health and well-being. In August, the Editorial Board wrote about how the United States can address its maternal mortality crisis.
Wisconsin state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) announced Tuesday that Republicans would allow the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau to draw legislative maps, a dramatic reversal after years of opposing such an approach to redistricting. A new liberal majority on the state Supreme Court is expected to throw out the current maps, which make Wisconsin the most gerrymandered state in America. Mr. Vos has been threatening to impeach Justice Janet Protasiewicz, whose election this spring flipped control of the court, in a bid to keep those maps. This led to understandable outcry. Now it seems Mr. Vos is backing off his impeachment threat and his efforts to keep the state gerrymandered. Read our editorial on the Protasiewicz election here.
Prisoners are eating again in Bahrain after the government agreed to let them spend more hours outside and expanded their access to visitors, a welcome development ahead of the crown prince’s visit to Washington this week. Activists say the monthlong hunger strike will resume on Sept. 30 if these promises aren’t kept. Read our editorial calling for the compassionate release of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a political prisoner since 2011 who participated in the strike.
A retired teacher in Saudi Arabia, Muhammad al-Ghamdi, has been sentenced to death by the country’s Specialized Criminal Court solely based on his tweets, retweets and YouTube activity, according to Human Rights Watch. The court’s verdict, July 10, was based on two accounts on X, formerly Twitter, which had only a handful of followers. The posts criticized the royal family. The sentence is the latest example of dictatorships imposing harsh sentences on people who use social media for free expression, highlighted in our February editorial.
1/6
What the new studies show is that altering or altogether scrapping today’s algorithms won’t magically fix the country’s problems. The 12 studies still to come from this collaboration might offer some more insight into what will help. But so will continued research — conducted as platforms, ideally, make continued changes. Meta should open its inner workings even wider to academic insight; other platforms, including those such as Twitter and Reddit that have recently restricted research access, should join in.
Researchers haven’t yet seen, for instance, the consequences of disfavoring posts that cause outrage; they haven’t seen the outcomes produced by “bridging systems,” algorithms that boost posts that appeal to diverse audiences. They have more to learn about the impact of third-party fact-checks, community notes on Twitter (now X) and other interventions designed to fight misinformation. And they haven’t seen what occurs when a site gives users themselves more control over what they see — as Meta plans to do with its microblogging app, Threads.
This week’s studies aren’t an excuse for platforms to stop encouraging healthier atmospheres. They’re a reason to keep going, so academics can keep studying. Maybe, with enough effort over enough time, something will actually change.
