Facebook_targeted-min.png"/>In 2018, a change in Facebook’s algorithms led to a significant increase in the activity of local Republican groups in the United States, despite their Democratic counterparts posting more often. Writes about it nbc news.
Researchers at Research & Politics measured engagement with local Democratic and Republican group social media posts from 2016-2021. They found that in 2018, a few months after the Facebook algorithm change, there was a significant spike in page engagement. “Great Old Party” on Facebook that wasn’t on Twitter.
“It is possible that content score changes resulted in a doubling of the total number of local GOP posts compared to local Democratic Party posts in the first half of 2019, although the latter posted more frequently during the same period,” the researchers said.
Without access to the homepage ranking algorithm, it’s hard to know exactly what caused the shift, they said. However, experts noted that the findings are consistent with previous investigations within the Facebook Papers.
A Meta spokesperson called the researchers’ information “implausible” and erroneous.
“This is inconsistent with what the algorithm was actually doing, which was to reduce the amount of public content, such as political content, on the platform,” a spokesperson for the company said.
He suggested that the surge in activity coincided with an election cycle traditionally causing “significant” divisions between supporters of both political forces.
Recall that in October 2021, former Facebook employee Francis Haugen accused the social network of deliberately using algorithms to incite hatred for profit.
In the same month, Facebook agreed to open content ranking tools to regulators to prove they were harmless.
At the end of October, against the background of the scandal, the corporation carried out a large-scale rebranding, changing its name to Meta.
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Facebook_targeted-min.png"/>In 2018, a change in Facebook’s algorithms led to a significant increase in the activity of local Republican groups in the United States, despite their Democratic counterparts posting more often. Writes about it nbc news.
Researchers at Research & Politics measured engagement with local Democratic and Republican group social media posts from 2016-2021. They found that in 2018, a few months after the Facebook algorithm change, there was a significant spike in page engagement. “Great Old Party” on Facebook that wasn’t on Twitter.
“It is possible that content score changes resulted in a doubling of the total number of local GOP posts compared to local Democratic Party posts in the first half of 2019, although the latter posted more frequently during the same period,” the researchers said.
Without access to the homepage ranking algorithm, it’s hard to know exactly what caused the shift, they said. However, experts noted that the findings are consistent with previous investigations within the Facebook Papers.
A Meta spokesperson called the researchers’ information “implausible” and erroneous.
“This is inconsistent with what the algorithm was actually doing, which was to reduce the amount of public content, such as political content, on the platform,” a spokesperson for the company said.
He suggested that the surge in activity coincided with an election cycle traditionally causing “significant” divisions between supporters of both political forces.
Recall that in October 2021, former Facebook employee Francis Haugen accused the social network of deliberately using algorithms to incite hatred for profit.
In the same month, Facebook agreed to open content ranking tools to regulators to prove they were harmless.
At the end of October, against the background of the scandal, the corporation carried out a large-scale rebranding, changing its name to Meta.
Subscribe to Cryplogger news in Telegram: Cryplogger AI – all the news from the world of AI!
Found a mistake in the text? Select it and press CTRL+ENTER
