How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign?
- PMID: 37498999
- DOI: 10.1126/science.abp9364
How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign?
Erratum in
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Erratum for the Research Article "How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign?" by A. M. Guess et al.Science. 2024 Dec 6;386(6726):eadu8261. doi: 10.1126/science.adu8261. Epub 2024 Dec 5. Science. 2024. PMID: 39637002 No abstract available.
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Erratum for the Research Article "How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign?".Science. 2026 Mar 19;391(6791):eaeh2575. doi: 10.1126/science.aeh2575. Epub 2026 Mar 19. Science. 2026. PMID: 41855352 No abstract available.
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.
Comment in
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Context matters in social media.Science. 2024 Sep 27;385(6716):1393. doi: 10.1126/science.adt2983. Epub 2024 Sep 26. Science. 2024. PMID: 39325879
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