Is Facebook Keeping You In a Political Bubble?

sciencehabit writes: Does Facebook make it harder for people with different political views to get along? Political scientists have long wondered whether the social network's news feed selectively serves up ideologically charged news while filtering out content from different camps. Now, a study by Facebook's in-house social scientists finds that this does happen, though the effect seems to be very small. "There's a growing concern that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow us to more precisely engineer our informational environments than ever before, so we only get info that's consistent with our prior beliefs," says David Lazer, a political and computer scientist who authored a commentary on the paper.

Comments

Re:Who gets their political news from Facebook?

[turkeydance]

not just political news...ALL the news they will see (my nieces and nephews, for example).

Re:No, but your own choices are.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus you end up with 25 year olds who have no basic understanding of conservative economic principles, or presume that there's no other possible motiviation for some random socially conservative policy than abject hatred and/or slavish religious belief.

Which differs from XX year olds who have no basic understanding of liberal principles, or presume that there's no other possible motivation for some random liberal policy than abject hatred (especially of America!) and/or slavish devotion to the government that is stealing their money/freedom/religion in what way exactly?

Why exactly has that base riled up over Jade Helm anyway? And why shouldn't we unfriend them? There's nothing to hear but noise..

Facebook isn't. But Slashdot is.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't use Facebook, so it isn't doing anything to my political viewpoints.

Slashdot, on the other hand, is. Every day we're subjected to one or more dumb social justice stories here. If it isn't yet another article about how there aren't enough women in tech (and which also totally ignore how there are some fields that are female-dominated), then it's an article about how the police are "bad" for having to use deadly force in self defence against some black youths who physically attacked them. Then there's the total nonsense about Aaron Swartz that comes up so often, and the articles are always defending him (although he acted maliciously) and blame others for his death (although it was due to his completely voluntary suicide). And just yesterday, I believe it was, there was yet another article scare-mongering about climate change.

Slashdot wasn't always like this, mind you. But since it has oriented itself toward social justice causes, I've found myself becoming less and less supportive of what is becoming a very extremist, intolerant political mindset. Social justice is no longer social in nature; it's about creating division among people. Nor is it about justice; it's about promoting severe inequality under the cloak of equality.

Re:Facebook isn't. But Slashdot is.

[drinkypoo]

Then there's the total nonsense about Aaron Swartz that comes up so often, and the articles are always defending him (although he acted maliciously)

What's malicious about downloading papers which the public is permitted to see?

and blame others for his death (although it was due to his completely voluntary suicide)

I vote we lock you in a box undeservedly next. Not that you exist.

When algorithms rule

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

In the future our algorithmic overlords will decide for what's good in everything we do, from our gadgets to our leaders to our lovers. It would be a technological utopia for the sheeple, a dystopia for the freethinkers. Rather than war, it's our Facebook likes, Google searches, Amazon (Alibaba?) buys, aggregated and analysed by machines, that will bring about the Matrix.

Re:No, but your own choices are.

[Guy Harris]

If you de-friend someone (or large groups of someones), their stories are basically not going to be on your feed in the first place, and liberals have been shown to be more likely to de-friend conservatives over political differences than conservatives de-friend liberals http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/21/liberals-are-more-likely-to-unfriend-you-over-politics-online-and-off/

Perhaps because, as the article you cite says:

However, that doesn't mean liberals necessarily like all of the ideas they see. Consistent liberals were the most likely group to block or unfriend someone because they disagreed with their political postings, with 44 percent saying they had "hidden, blocked, defriended, or stopped following someone" on Facebook due to their political postings. Only roughly one-third (31 percent) of consistent conservatives had done the same -- although this might be attributable to lower levels of ideological diversity in their online ecosystem.

And that conservative echochamber isn't limited to conservatives' online interactions: It's a reflection of the lack of ideological diversity in their real life relationships. Two-thirds of consistent conservatives told Pew that most of their close friends share their views on government and politics, compared to just over half, or 52 percent, of consistent liberals. For mostly conservatives, 42 percent of their close friends have the same views, while just 26 percent of mostly liberals respondents who said the same.

so maybe liberals have more conservative "friends" to de-"friend" than conservatives have liberal "friends" to de-"friend".

Re:No, but your own choices are.

[Stuarticus]

In other breaking news normal people are more likely to defriend sociopaths than vice versa.