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

Facebook was aware of the impact MSI had upon global politics

“Our goal to foster more meaningful interactions with close friends (MSI), is deeply laudable,” reads a 2019 internal memo written by a team data scientists. It was included in documents provided by Haugen, and viewed by NBC News. “But our approach had unhealthy side effects upon important slices of public media content such as news and politics,” the data scientists stated.

According to an internal memo, political parties were taking extreme positions and engaging in more harsh attacks on political opponents. According to the memo, the political parties were “trapped by an inescapable circle of negative campaigning by platform incentive structures”, which included political parties from India, Taiwan, and the European Union.

The report stated that “many parties, even those that have shifted strongly towards the negative, worry about long-term consequences on democracy.” To reverse the effect, the report recommended that political parties be provided with special pages that work under the old algorithm.

Jeff Allen, a former Facebook data scientist, stated that the new research was valid even though the exact cause of the Republicans’ overwhelming victory over the Democrats was not clear.