A change to Facebook’s algorithm in 2018 likely boosted visibility and engagement for conservative political groups on the platform, research finds.
Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 23, 2019.A change to Facebook’s recommendation system likely accounted for a disproportionate boost in visibility and engagementThe research, published in the journal Research & Politics, looked at posts
An author of the paper, Kevin Reuning, an assistant professor of political science at Miami University, pulled the data in 2020 for a different project. He said he initially didn’t understand the divergence in engagement. He said he considered that perhaps the Republican messages were just resonating more, but the same pattern wasn’t found on Twitter, and it was consistent on Facebook across over 1,000 Republican pages.
“Many parties, including those that have shifted strongly to the negative, worry about the long-term effects on democracy,” the report said. Recommendations to reverse the impact included providing political parties with “special pages that operate under the old algorithm.”
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