That is fascinating. Earlier right this moment, Twitter chief Elon Musk replied to a commentator who questioned why he was seeing extra ‘proper wing’ posts in his feed.
Folks on the suitable ought to see extra “left wing” stuff and other people on the left ought to see extra “proper wing” stuff.
However you possibly can simply block it if you wish to keep in an echo chamber.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2023
Now, this isn’t a definitive coverage change or replace that Elon’s reinforcing. Nevertheless it does appear to counsel that Twitter might, in any case, be seeking to present folks extra opposing political commentary of their tweet feeds, as a way to spark broader consciousness and engagement. Musk additionally pinned this tweet, which provides a little bit extra weight to the suggestion.
Which is fascinating as a result of as varied research have proven, this method merely doesn’t work.
Again in 2020, Meta govt Andrew Bosworth printed a protracted weblog put up on the challenges of political polarization on social networks, and their experiences at Fb in coping with such.
Bosworth defined that, whereas they’d, at totally different instances, tried to try to present customers extra content material from each side of the political spectrum, the person response had been the alternative of the supposed impact.
As per Bosworth:
“Ask your self what number of newspapers and information applications folks learn/watched earlier than the web. In case you guessed ‘one and one’ on common you might be proper, and if you happen to guessed these have been ideologically aligned with them you might be proper once more. The web exposes them to way more content material from different sources (26% extra on Fb, based on our analysis). That is one that everybody simply will get incorrect. The deal with filter bubbles causes folks to overlook the true catastrophe which is polarization. What occurs once you see 26% extra content material from folks you don’t agree with? Does it provide help to empathize with them as everybody has been suggesting? Nope. It makes you dislike them much more.”
Inside this, Bosworth basically acknowledges that Fb utilization has certainly amplified political division, although not in the way in which that many count on – i.e. by exhibiting you increasingly posts that align along with your established beliefs. Bosworth says that Fb customers really ended up seeing much more opposing viewpoints, however that solely exacerbated political divides, as a result of these posts drove extra angst, and additional embedded opposition, versus opening folks’s minds to a different mind-set.
Certainly, that very same 12 months, in a speech on the Munich Safety Convention, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg defined that:
“Individuals are much less more likely to click on on issues and interact with them in the event that they don’t agree with them. So, I don’t know methods to clear up that downside. That’s not a expertise downside as a lot as it’s a human affirmation downside.”
Shortly after this, in January 2021, Meta introduced its intention to cut back the quantity of political content material in person feeds.
As per Zuckerberg (on Meta’s This fall ‘20 earnings name):
“One of many prime items of suggestions we’re listening to from our neighborhood proper now could be that folks don’t need politics and preventing to take over their expertise on our providers.”
Folks have been getting sick of the angst and bickering on Fb, which was inflicting them to go online much less and fewer, so Meta sought to cut back political content material, in favor of extra fulfilling experiences.
In reality, as per extra current reviews, Zuckerberg really directed his engineering groups to successfully minimize political content material out of individuals’s Information Feeds altogether. Which Fb customers additionally didn’t like.
Meta has since scaled again politics in-feed, nevertheless it’s stopped in need of eliminating it.
As reported by The Wall Avenue Journal:
“Meta now estimates politics accounts for lower than 3% of whole content material views in customers’ newsfeed, down from 6% across the time of the 2020 election, the paperwork present. However as an alternative of decreasing views by way of indiscriminate suppression or heavy-handed moderation, Fb has altered the newsfeed algorithm’s suggestions of delicate content material towards what customers say they worth, and away from what merely makes them interact, based on paperwork and other people accustomed to the efforts.”
In different phrases, Meta’s not exhibiting folks as a lot divisive, incendiary posts – which doubtless signifies that it’s not seeking to spotlight as a lot content material from the alternative aspect of the political spectrum.
Which can, as Musk notes, hold customers of their echo chamber. However the analysis and experiments present that customers merely don’t need the fixed provocation and angst, which, finally, sees them use the app much less.
On Twitter, that’ll doubtless drive customers to swap over to the ‘Following’ feed as an alternative of the ‘For You’ most important itemizing, which incorporates beneficial tweets, as chosen by Twitter’s methods. If Musk and Co. are certainly pushing extra politics into this stream, these previous experiments counsel that it received’t work out as they may hope – although in principle, you possibly can see why Musk needs to increase folks’s horizons, and get them to see extra content material from the opposite aspect of the political divide.
Or he simply needs to advertise his personal political views, and get extra folks to see issues from his perspective.
It’s obscure the total motivations on this respect, significantly given Musk’s overt political leanings and opinions. However in essence, it looks like one other concept that appears to make sense, based mostly on an ideological view, however in actuality, doesn’t work – and we’ve got a heap of research and information to underline this.
Nonetheless, Musk has proven that he’s going to go his personal means, even when which means difficult established ideas, with the intention to show them for himself.
Possibly it really works out totally different on Twitter, nevertheless it looks like a dangerous transfer, particularly once you’re making an attempt to maximise discovery and engagement inside that most important ‘For You’ feed.
However if you happen to begin to discover extra political content material in your tweet feed, that is in all probability why.
