Research finds Facebook’s algorithm update in 2018 boosted local GOP groups

Reuning said a series of Wall Street Journal stories based on thousands of pages of internal reports and memos provided to the Securities and Exchange Commission last year by Frances Haugen, a Facebook product manager-turned-whistleblower, made him consider whether Facebook had a hand in the sudden shift.

A 2018 overhaul in Facebook’s News Feed product towards what it called “meaningful Social Interactions,” or MSI, boosted contents using reactions, comments, and shares. It was intended to predict which posts users would like to interact with, and to deprioritize news and public content. According to Facebook documents and external researchers, the practice was that MSI determined how content appeared to users. It also rewarded groups and users who shared the most controversial, shocking, or misinformed content.

Meta spokesperson Dani Lever disputed the findings

Although we were not allowed to review this research, it does not add up to what MSI actually did. That was reduce the number of public content, such as that of political parties, on the platform. Instead, these trends seem to coincide with divisive elections. Furthermore, since differences between American political parties have grown for decades, it seems unlikely that a change in Facebook ranking would fundamentally alter how people engage with them,” Lever wrote in an email.

Facebook responded to the Wall Street Journal stories, downplaying its role as a polarizer of content. Andy Stone , a spokesperson for Facebook, stated that research shows that certain partisan divisions have been growing in society for many decades before platforms like Facebook existed.