In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, Meta set out to conduct a series of ambitious studies on the effects its platforms—Facebook and Instagram—have on the political beliefs of US-based users. Independent researchers from several universities were given unprecedented access to Meta’s data, and the power to change the feeds of tens of thousands of people in order to observe their behavior.
The researchers weren’t paid by Meta, but the company seemed pleased with the results, which were released today in four papers in Nature and Science. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said in a statement that “the experimental findings add to a growing body of research
→ Continue reading at WIRED
