Social media
Political polarization

Many critics point to studies showing social media algorithms elevate more partisan and inflammatory content. Because of recommendation algorithms that filter and display news content that matches users' political preferences, one potential impact is an increase in political polarization due to selective exposure. Political polarization is the divergence of political attitudes towards ideological extremes. Selective exposure occurs when an individual favors information that supports their beliefs and avoids information that conflicts with them. Aviv Ovadya argues that these algorithms incentivize the creation of divisive content in addition to promoting existing divisive content, but could be designed to reduce polarization instead. In 2017, Facebook gave its new emoji reactions five times the weight in its algorithms as its like button, which data scientists at the company in 2019 confirmed had disproportionately boosted toxicity, misinformation and low-quality news.

Some popular ideas for how to combat selective exposure have had no or opposite impacts. Some advocate for media literacy as a solution. Others argue that less social media, or more local journalism could help address political polarization.
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