[Air-L] Studies on Meta and partisanship

[Libby Hemphill]

Here are the papers:

   - Reshares https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.add8424
   - Chronofeed: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abp9364
   - Segregation: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.ade7138
   - Like-minded: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06297-w

All of the datasets are here:
https://socialmediaarchive.org/search?cc=US2020&ln=en&c=US2020

On Thu, Jul 27, 2023 at 4:41 PM Joly MacFie via Air-L <
air-l at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

> From POLITICO's Digital Future Daily
> <https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily>
>
> The article does not link to the studies. Maybe someone could provide?
>
> <snip>
>
> The studies released Thursday tried to tease out the influence of
> particular factors, such as Facebook's algorithm for serving up content to
> users. Two studies published in the journal Science that examined the
> effects of Facebook’s algorithm and reshare feature during the fall of 2020
> found that both features increased user engagement — but neither affected
> people's existing political attitudes or polarization.
>
> A separate study published in the journal Nature found that reducing users’
> exposure to sources that echo their existing beliefs didn't affect their
> political attitudes either.
>
> Meta trumpeted the results in a memo circulated ahead of the studies’
> release: “Despite the common assertions that social media is ‘destroying
> democracy,’” the company wrote, “the evidence in these and many other
> studies shows something very different.”
>
> Social media critics — many of whom have spent years sounding the alarm
> about the ways it has changed American politics — suggested the studies
> were too limited, and too close to Meta itself, to be persuasive, including
> Frances Haugen, the former Facebook executive who leaked internal company
> files in 2021, and Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of Accountable Tech, an
> advocacy group focused on information controls for social media.
>
> A fourth study, also published in Science, found that a cluster of news
> sources consumed by conservatives produced most of the misinformation
> flagged by the platform’s third-party fact-checking system. (A study
> co-author, Sandra González-Bailón of the University of Pennsylvania,
> declined to provide a list of those sources.)
>
> The studies were the result of a collaboration between Meta and 17 outside
> researchers from universities including Northeastern, Stanford and
> Princeton.
>
> An independent rapporteur tasked with evaluating the collaboration vouched
> for the soundness of its results, but said its framework gave Meta
> influence over the ways in which outside researchers evaluated its
> platforms.
>
> “Meta set the agenda in ways that affected the overall independence of the
> researchers,” wrote Michael Wagner, a professor at the University of
> Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
>
> </snip>
>
> Read more:
> https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/27/meta-partisanship-00108553
>
> --
> --------------------------------------
> Joly MacFie  +12185659365
> --------------------------------------
> -
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-- 

Libby Hemphill
pronouns: she/her/hers
Director, Resource Center for Minority Data
<http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/RCMD>, ICPSR
<http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/>
Director, Social Media Archive <http://socialmediaarchive.org/>, ICPSR
<http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/>
Associate Director, Center for Social Media Responsibility
<http://csmr.umich.edu/>
Research Associate Professor, Institute for Social Research
<http://home.isr.umich.edu/>
Associate Professor, School of Information <https://www.si.umich.edu/>
University of Michigan