UPF study finds increase in ideological polarization and biased or false news on Facebook

Catalan university Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) have published a study on Tuesday morning that concludes there has been an increase in ideological polarization and biased or false news on Facebook.

The research, which analyzes more than six million news links from 1,231 different domains in the US and shared through Facebook between 2017 and 2020, points to an "upward trend" in ideological polarization and the spreading of false or biased information.

The shift in content tone also coincides in time with changes to the platform, which involved changes in the way information is sorted.

The changes gave more value to certain types of interactions in the algorithm: in 2018, more value was given to shares and comments than to 'likes' and in 2020, comments were given more weight, over shares.

The analysis suggests that these changes also coincided with variations in user behavior. However, the authors of the study believe that a direct causal relationship cannot be established between these facts and should be examined in more depth.

According to the study, engagement patterns are higher among users of ideological extremes than among moderates. Since content with greater engagement tends to gain visibility after the changes of 2018 and 2020, the analysis says, the upward trend of more extremist content could be explained in a differentiated way according to the user profile.

In addition, the most biased content also tends to come from lower quality sources, the study notes.

In addition to how the algorithms work, the study also warns that polarization is also explained by the behavior of users, who tend to consume content related to their ideology.

Following the changes to the platform, the differences between the information diets of progressives and conservatives have become more pronounced, making it difficult to find common ground for democratic debate.