The answer seems to be yes. After analyzing popular political news links posted on the platform between September 2020 and February 2021, the researchers found that there’s not much overlap between political news consumption within the two camps. Segregation also increases as a news link moves from being selected by the algorithm, to being seen by a user, to being interacted with.
That ideological gap was larger than what other research has shown for overall news consumption online and in traditional media.
“This borders on an indictment of Facebook’s algorithm,” said Laura Edelson, a computer scientist and postdoctoral researcher at NYU. She was not involved with the project but has done similar research and reviewed the studies’ findings. (In 2021, Edelson and her team were blocked from accessing Facebook after a clash over the data they were collecting.)
I assume with X you need to directly manipulate the algorithm to manipulate what appears in feeds. Which means you don’t have this plausible deniability by blaming a third party mod. OTOH it’s more difficult for a user to detect the platform doing algorithm manipulation and call out the platform because it’s just a black box to them.
X probably does. Facebook seems to be more impartial. Not that it speaks much against Zuck’s support for the administration.
New study shows just how Facebook’s algorithm shapes conservative and liberal bubbles
I assume with X you need to directly manipulate the algorithm to manipulate what appears in feeds. Which means you don’t have this plausible deniability by blaming a third party mod. OTOH it’s more difficult for a user to detect the platform doing algorithm manipulation and call out the platform because it’s just a black box to them.