New research supported by Meta reveals that chronological feeds are not a solution for platform polarization

A new research partnership between Meta (formerly Facebook) and several academia has found that Facebook and Instagram users are exposed to vastly different political news depending on their political beliefs. However, the study suggests that switching to chronological feeds will not solve the issue of polarization. The research analyzed data from around 208 million US-based active users, which accounted for nearly all of the 231 million Facebook and Instagram users in the country at the time. The study found that users classified as “conservative” consumed significantly more politically biased content compared to liberal users. The research also explored the impact of algorithmically ranked news feeds and found that switching to chronological feeds decreased engagement and time spent on the platforms. Although the chronological feeds presented more moderate content, it also increased exposure to political and untrustworthy content. The research did not find a statistically significant difference in political participation between the groups using different feed algorithms. Another study in the partnership found that removing reshared content reduced exposure to political and untrustworthy news but did not impact polarization. However, it did decrease participants’ overall news knowledge. The researchers highlighted the need for further transparency and accountability in algorithm design. Meta has maintained that algorithms play a role in driving polarization but claims that social media has limited impact on divisive political attitudes and behaviors. The study is part of a series of 16 papers Meta expects to publish on this topic.

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