Misinformation & Information
In the digital age, information and misinformation spreads rapidly on social media. CSMaP experts study how we consume and share news online and the impact of misinformation on our democracy.
Research
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Journal Article
Like-Minded Sources On Facebook Are Prevalent But Not Polarizing
Nature, 2023
Many critics raise concerns about the prevalence of ‘echo chambers’ on social media and their potential role in increasing political polarization. However, the lack of available data and the challenges of conducting large-scale field experiments have made it difficult to assess the scope of the problem1,2. Here we present data from 2020 for the entire population of active adult Facebook users in the USA showing that content from ‘like-minded’ sources constitutes the majority of what people see on the platform, although political information and news represent only a small fraction of these exposures. To evaluate a potential response to concerns about the effects of echo chambers, we conducted a multi-wave field experiment on Facebook among 23,377 users for whom we reduced exposure to content from like-minded sources during the 2020 US presidential election by about one-third. We found that the intervention increased their exposure to content from cross-cutting sources and decreased exposure to uncivil language, but had no measurable effects on eight preregistered attitudinal measures such as affective polarization, ideological extremity, candidate evaluations and belief in false claims. These precisely estimated results suggest that although exposure to content from like-minded sources on social media is common, reducing its prevalence during the 2020 US presidential election did not correspondingly reduce polarization in beliefs or attitudes.
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Journal Article
News & Views
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Commentary
Beyond Red Teaming: Facilitating User-based Data Donation to Study Generative AI
Just like social media, a key challenge to studying the public's use of generative AI is the lack of data. AI companies could solve this by making it easier for users to donate their data to research.
November 1, 2023
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News
First Four Papers from US 2020 Facebook & Instagram Research Election Study Published in Science and Nature
Unprecedented research in the context of the 2020 presidential election reveals algorithms are extremely influential in people’s on-platform experiences and there is significant ideological segregation in political news exposure but, among consenting study participants, changes to critical aspects of the algorithms that determine what they saw did not sway political attitudes.
July 27, 2023