Research Shows Facebook Has Played a Role in Increasing Political Divisions and Extremism

Facebook’s tendency to make it so that people with radical or extreme views can end up getting some kind of a platform through which they can use to espouse their hate filled rhetoric to a much wider audience. The social media juggernaut is a master of misdirection, and the messaging from the company often attempts to discredit things that most people can really easily see with their own two eyes by trying to suggest that there is no problem to speak of or alternatively that the problem is not quite as big as people might be making it out to be.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that researchers working at New York University have found evidence that social media platforms in general, and Facebook in particular, have contributed rather heavily to the spread of extremist thoughts and have made the current highly divisive and extreme political climate to come about. While social media is not the only thing that is influencing things in this regard, the role that it does play should most definitely end up being addressed so that a remedy can be concocted.

Social media companies are well aware of the role that they play in this regard because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up impacting them in a wide range of ways. Yet, they still refuse to give any information regarding how their platform and algorithms actually work. One reason for this could be that they don’t want this information ending up in the hands of the competition since they often use proprietary tech to manage their newsfeeds and content and the like.

Whatever the case may be, social media platforms like Facebook are definitely making the problem a lot worse than it might have otherwise ended up being. They are contributing to the spread of divisive rhetoric and are often not taking action to ensure that a solution can be found. This is why regulatory authorities should definitely step in so that the problem can be managed a bit more effectively. Failing to act in a timely enough manner could lead to a whole host of other problems occurring in the long run none of which are going to be all that easy to deal with all in all.

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Source: NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights

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