Facebook, Algorithms, and the 2016 Election
By Sierra Stone, SML Research Assistant
The 2016 Presidential election is like one we’ve never seen before. Even though social media existed four years ago, it didn’t have near the influence on the election as it does now. During this election, I’ve seen an extremely large amount of political media on my feed. I think most would say that same. Candidates are using it to their advantage and the public is using it to get their political news.
We all know that Facebook uses algorithms as a way to determine the content that shows up on your feed. I can tell that many of my suggested posts are tailored to me. They reflect my previous searches and things that I’ve clicked on. As an article in the Washington Post explains, “The company uses an automatic system (an algorithm) to surface what’s currently popular, and a team of staffers then further curates the list to tailor it to meet particular standards.”
How Does Facebook Know Your Political Affiliation?
Facebook attempts to figure out your political allegiances based on your online activity and the algorithms mentioned above. “If you haven’t directly indicated which political party you support by, for example, liking the page of a specific candidate, then Facebook will try to infer this information from your other activity on the site,” says a recent article in The Verge.
You can check what Facebook thinks your allegiance is by checking clicking on “Ads”, then “preferences”. Under the “Lifestyle and Culture” tab, there is a politics section. Here, you can see what Facebook thinks your political leanings are.
Does Facebook Create Content Bias?
The question is: Does Facebook create bias via content filtering? Especially when related to politics? For example, someone with right leanings will mainly or even only see right-wing news and information. When all you see is your party’s side of the story, are you really getting the most accurate or diverse information? I personally am in an interesting situation. I don’t ever post or like anything related to politics on Facebook, hence why Facebook believes I am a moderate. However, most of my friends on Facebook are extremely conservative. My feed is constantly filled with right-wing posts and very rarely do I see any liberal or even moderate action. Do the Facebook algorithms not know what to do because I like so little content in this realm? Do they choose content based on my friends’ likes because that is the only information they have to go on?
What do I think?
Based on my research I believe that Facebook does create content bias to some extent. “It scans and collects everything posted in the past week by each of your friends, everyone you follow, each group you belong to, and every Facebook page you’ve liked,” says an explanatory article in Slate.
Although Facebook uses their news feed algorithms as a way to make users happy and fit their tastes, I think the way these algorithms are designed can cause skewed information; especially in the case of politics. I now know that the algorithm looks at both your posts and likes along with your friends’. In my case, I know why I see such extremely conservative posts even though I don’t like or post anything of that nature. It is clear that the Facebook algorithms do create content bias. To a certain point, Facebook is giving you what you want to see. In my case it is giving me what it thinks I want to see. A system of this nature makes it harder to see both sides of the story or both parties’ side to the story in the 2016 election.
