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How Do Social Media Feed Algorithms Affect Attitudes and Behavior in an Election Campaign?
To test the effects of algorithmic curation on users' Facebook and Instagram feeds, we conducted a field experiment and measured how changes in users' feeds affected their attitudes and behaviors.
Citation
Andrew M. Guess, Neil Malhotra, Jennifer Pan, Pablo Barberá, Hunt Alcott, Taylor Brown, Adriana Crespo-Tenorio, et al. "How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign?" Science 381, 398-404 (2023). DOI:10.1126/science.abp9364
Date Posted
Jul 27, 2023
Authors
- Andrew M. Guess,
- Neil Malhotra,
- Jennifer Pan,
- Pablo Barberá,
- Hunt Alcott,
- Taylor Brown,
- Adriana Crespo-Tenorio,
- Drew Dimmery,
- Deen Freelon,
- Matthew Gentzkow,
- Sandra González-Bailón,
- Edward Kennedy,
- Young Mie Kim,
- David Lazer,
- Devra Moehler,
- Brendan Nyhan,
- Jaime Settle,
- Calos Velasco-Rivera,
- Daniel Robert Thomas,
- Emily Thorson,
- Rebekah Tromble,
- Beixian Xiong,
- Chad Kiewiet De Jong,
- Annie Franco,
- Winter Mason,
- Natalie Jomini Stroud,
- Joshua A. Tucker
Area of Study
Abstract
We investigated the effects of Facebook’s and Instagram’s feed algorithms during the 2020 US election. We assigned a sample of consenting users to reverse-chronologically-ordered feeds instead of the default algorithms. Moving users out of algorithmic feeds substantially decreased the time they spent on the platforms and their activity. The chronological feed also affected exposure to content: The amount of political and untrustworthy content they saw increased on both platforms, the amount of content classified as uncivil or containing slur words they saw decreased on Facebook, and the amount of content from moderate friends and sources with ideologically mixed audiences they saw increased on Facebook. Despite these substantial changes in users’ on-platform experience, the chronological feed did not significantly alter levels of issue polarization, affective polarization, political knowledge, or other key attitudes during the 3-month study period.
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