Like-minded sources on Facebook are prevalent but not polarizing

Abstract

Many critics raise concerns about the prevalence of ‘echo chambers’ on social media and their potential role in increasing political polarization. However, the lack of available data and the challenges of conducting large-scale field experiments have made it difficult to assess the scope of the problem1,2. Here we present data from 2020 for the entire population of active adult Facebook users in the USA showing that content from ‘like-minded’ sources constitutes the majority of what people see on the platform, although political information and news represent only a small fraction of these exposures. To evaluate a potential response to concerns about the effects of echo chambers, we conducted a multi-wave field experiment on Facebook among 23,377 users for whom we reduced exposure to content from like-minded sources during the 2020 US presidential election by about one-third. We found that the intervention increased their exposure to content from cross-cutting sources and decreased exposure to uncivil language, but had no measurable effects on eight preregistered attitudinal measures such as affective polarization, ideological extremity, candidate evaluations and belief in false claims. These precisely estimated results suggest that although exposure to content from like-minded sources on social media is common, reducing its prevalence during the 2020 US presidential election did not correspondingly reduce polarization in beliefs or attitudes.

The Degree of Homogeneity Versus Heterogeneity in Individuals’ Political News Consumption

“…The cross-cultural replication of the low prevalence rates indicates that filter bubbles and echo chambers as originally defined are not a major issue for large parts of societies such as those of Germany and the United States, both constituting W estern, e ducated, i ndustrialized, r ich, and d emocratic (WEIRD) societies (Henrich et al, 2010). This finding is further in line with other studies from the United States and other WEIRD countries applying a multitude of approaches (Barberá et al, 2015; Dubois & Blank, 2018; Fletcher et al, 2021; Nyhan et al, 2023); although exact prevalence rates differ between studies. The consistent replication of low prevalence rates of absolutely homogeneous political news consumption might reduce fears about whole societies getting fragmented in separate information environments and consequently becoming polarized (Pariser, 2011; Sunstein, 2002, 2004, 2018).…”

The adaptive community-response (ACR) method for collecting misinformation on social media

“…Similarly, Reddit announced in April 2023 that it will no longer provide an API free of charge (see [57]), triggering disapproval of the Reddit community. These profit-seeking steps of social networking services drastically constrain the availability of social data, thereby rendering future research in the field highly challenging, but not impossible (see, e.g., [25,47]).…”

Null effects of social media ads on voter registration: Three digital field experiments

“…Beyond turnout and vote shares, studies show null effects of public or semi-public Facebook and Twitter posts on online and offline political activism (Coppock et al, 2015;Foos et al, 2020). Even major changes to the Facebook online experience, such as changes to media feed algorithms, do not impact turnout (Guess et al, 2023), polarisation, or political knowledge (Nyhan et al, 2023). Experimental studies of voter registration have so far mostly relied on direct mail and door-todoor canvassing.…”