Study says it’s the user who makes the news feed on … – publico

                 

                         
                     

                 

 
                         

A study by a Facebook researchers tried for the first time, determine the amount of news and information from different ideologies to which a user is exposed to your feed news and the number and ideological trend is influenced by the same algorithms that social networking use. According to the study, published in the Science and blog Facebook, the social network algorithms have an influence that is virtually “zero”. After all, it is the user who is isolated positions with which is not identified.

                     

                          For six months between July 2014 and January 2015, Facebook’s researchers analyzed anonymously close to 10 million profiles created in the United States. More than seven million links were shared by different people in the social network, again, only in that country. During the process, the team tried to understand the frequency with which users are exposed to news, whether about politics, economy, diplomacy, or even pieces about celebrities or television programs, for example.

According to the study, user-friendly and the stories they publish and share reflect their ideological preferences. Still, the researchers concluded that the user remains exposed to posts where positions can be reflected contrary to yours. However, this exposure is minimal.

The Facebook of the algorithm is a kind of screening opinions contrary to the user and suppresses them in 8% of cases for liberals and conservatives to 5%. On the user side, which expresses your personal preferences, exposure to content as liberal taken is reduced by 6% and the conservative content by 17%. The researchers conclude that the algorithms Facebook suppress content that deviate from user ideologies a lower percentage to which are deleted by the user through their own choices when using the social network.

Research has determined in this sense that the users who said liberal or conservative about their political or ideological affiliation, on average, 23% of users of these friends have expressed different political positions.

feed news shows content that are “slightly more aligned” with the user’s ideologies, but the friends you accept and content you like and share “are more important factors than the ranking set by feed news, “the study.

The study therefore suggests that there are algorithms of Facebook that lead to a profile that is politically one-sided, but the very choices made by the user to express that love a theme or by ignoring certain stories.