University of Kwazulu-Natal

The Surprising Impact Of Algorithms Moody College Of Communication

Bonisiwe Shabane
-
the surprising impact of algorithms moody college of communication

Moody College researcher leads unprecedented study with Meta exploring the role of social media in elections In the aftermath of the 2016 election, politicians, the media and everyday people raised numerous concerns about the effects of social media on democracy and how platforms like Facebook and Instagram influence people’s political... What role do these powerful social networks and the algorithms that run them have in how people view candidates or feel about important issues? Over the past several years, a multi-university academic team has been working alongside Meta to answer these very important questions as part of an unprecedented research project co-led by Moody College Communication Studies professor... As part of the project, the team had access to data from Meta that has never before been made available to researchers and were given the ability to alter the Facebook and Instagram feeds... In the summer of 2023, researchers released their first findings from the project in a sweep of papers published in both Nature and Science journals.

And while they found that algorithms have a tremendous effect on what people see on their feeds, changing these algorithms to change what people see doesn’t necessarily affect people’s political attitudes. Also, when the researchers looked at platform-wide data from U.S. adults, they found that many political news URLs were seen, and engaged with, primarily by conservatives or liberals, but not both. We investigated the effects of Facebook's and Instagram's feed algorithms during the 2020 US election. We assigned a sample of consenting users to reverse-chronologically-ordered feeds instead of the default algorithms. Moving users out of algorithmic feeds substantially decreased the time they spent on the platforms and their activity.

The chronological feed also affected exposure to content: The amount of political and untrustworthy content they saw increased on both platforms, the amount of content classified as uncivil or containing slur words they saw... Despite these substantial changes in users' on-platform experience, the chronological feed did not significantly alter levels of issue polarization, affective polarization, political knowledge, or other key attitudes during the 3-month study period. There is great public concern about the potential use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) for political persuasion and the resulting impacts on elections and democracy1,2,3,4,5,6. We inform these concerns using pre-registered experiments to assess the ability of large language models to influence voter attitudes. In the context of the 2024 US presidential election, the 2025 Canadian federal election and the 2025 Polish presidential election, we assigned participants randomly to have a conversation with an AI model that advocated... We observed significant treatment effects on candidate preference that are larger than typically observed from traditional video advertisements7,8,9.

We also document large persuasion effects on Massachusetts residents’ support for a ballot measure legalizing psychedelics. Examining the persuasion strategies9 used by the models indicates that they persuade with relevant facts and evidence, rather than using sophisticated psychological persuasion techniques. Not all facts and evidence presented, however, were accurate; across all three countries, the AI models advocating for candidates on the political right made more inaccurate claims. Together, these findings highlight the potential for AI to influence voters and the important role it might play in future elections. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription Receive 51 print issues and online access Unprecedented new research – conducted in the context of the 2020 election – examines how social media algorithms affect what people see on platforms and how they think about politics. Project co-lead and CME Director Talia Stroud explains the findings from this groundbreaking project from a multi-university academic team working in collaboration with Meta: Part of the book series: Springer Handbooks of Political Science and International Relations ((SHPPSIR)) This chapter examines algorithmic news recommendation that caters to individual preferences.

It aims to illuminate the renewed relationship between media and news audience with algorithmic processes and to explore the impact that such a relationship entails. The chapter dissects the phenomenon of algorithm-based news recommendation and analyzes the effects that algorithmic news consumption may have on audiences. It intends to raise awareness and inform the public, technocrats, and policy makers of the impact of such news consumption and guide debate on ethical decision-making and possible policy change. This chapter reuses some of the content in the author’s 2023 book “Algorithmic Audience in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” published by Peter Lang (https://www.peterlang.com/document/1282554), with the copyright clearance granted by the original publisher. This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access. Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Today, academics from U.S. colleges and universities working in collaboration with researchers at Meta published findings from the first set of four papers as part of the most comprehensive research project to date examining the role of social... The papers, which focus primarily on how critical aspects of the algorithms that determine what people see in their feeds affect what people see and believe, were peer-reviewed and published in Science and Nature. The academic team proposed and selected specific research questions and study designs with the explicit agreement that the only reasons Meta could reject such designs would be for legal, privacy, or logistical (i.e., infeasibility)... Meta could not restrict or censor findings, and the academic lead authors had final say over writing and research decisions. With this unprecedented access to data and research collaboration, the team found:

1. Algorithms are extremely influential in terms of what people see and in shaping their on-platform experiences. 2. There is significant ideological segregation in political news exposure.

People Also Search

Moody College Researcher Leads Unprecedented Study With Meta Exploring The

Moody College researcher leads unprecedented study with Meta exploring the role of social media in elections In the aftermath of the 2016 election, politicians, the media and everyday people raised numerous concerns about the effects of social media on democracy and how platforms like Facebook and Instagram influence people’s political... What role do these powerful social networks and the algorit...

And While They Found That Algorithms Have A Tremendous Effect

And while they found that algorithms have a tremendous effect on what people see on their feeds, changing these algorithms to change what people see doesn’t necessarily affect people’s political attitudes. Also, when the researchers looked at platform-wide data from U.S. adults, they found that many political news URLs were seen, and engaged with, primarily by conservatives or liberals, but not bo...

The Chronological Feed Also Affected Exposure To Content: The Amount

The chronological feed also affected exposure to content: The amount of political and untrustworthy content they saw increased on both platforms, the amount of content classified as uncivil or containing slur words they saw... Despite these substantial changes in users' on-platform experience, the chronological feed did not significantly alter levels of issue polarization, affective polarization, ...

We Also Document Large Persuasion Effects On Massachusetts Residents’ Support

We also document large persuasion effects on Massachusetts residents’ support for a ballot measure legalizing psychedelics. Examining the persuasion strategies9 used by the models indicates that they persuade with relevant facts and evidence, rather than using sophisticated psychological persuasion techniques. Not all facts and evidence presented, however, were accurate; across all three countries...

Get Nature+, Our Best-value Online-access Subscription Receive 51 Print Issues

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription Receive 51 print issues and online access Unprecedented new research – conducted in the context of the 2020 election – examines how social media algorithms affect what people see on platforms and how they think about politics. Project co-lead and CME Director Talia Stroud explains the findings from this groundbreaking project from a multi-univ...