When it comes to viewing social media posts, practically all apps have an algorithmic feed that recommends content based on the accounts you follow, the likes you give, the comments you make, and other (many) data.
However, depending on the social media platform, there may also be a chronological feed, where you only see content from the accounts you follow.
While the popular belief is that algorithmic feeds favor user polarization by continuously recommending similar content, and that chronological feeds may avoid this situation by showing only the content of people you follow, a new study in which Meta has participated demonstrates that this is not the case.
A group of academics has published the results of a research conducted in collaboration with Meta in the scientific journals Science and Nature, analyzing the impact of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 US elections.
The study used data from 208 million active American Facebook users who consented to the research, provided by Meta themselves.
The research was conducted before, during, and after the US elections that resulted in Joe Biden’s victory, spanning from September to December 2020, to determine whether algorithmic feeds were indeed the main culprits behind the spread of misinformation, as many US lawmakers claimed.
Participants were divided into two groups: one group used chronological feeds implemented by Meta on Facebook and Instagram, while the other group used the default algorithmic feeds of both social media platforms.
Despite users with chronological feeds seeing more “moderate” content compared to those with algorithmic feeds, they were found to view a higher number of political contents (15.2% more) as well as “unreliable” contents (68.8% more). After surveying the study participants, the researchers did not observe any “statistically significant difference” in political engagement between the two groups.
In addition to proving that chronological feeds do not affect political polarization, the researchers also found that 97% of the misinformation shared on Facebook and Instagram is consumed by conservative (right-wing) users, and that the ability to share news from other accounts/pages encourages the spread of false information.
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