Kevin Roose at the NYT deserves praise both for being the reason they went through this exercise in removing all doubt, as well as getting close to writing the complete story before it ever happened: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/technology/facebook-data....
Removing doubt about what? That people on this platform do not agree with his politics? (article is paywalled so I can only comment on the first few sentences)
For what is worth, their methodology also looks flawed and paints an exaggerating picture.
If anything I'm not convinced this doesn't just show that Facebook is mostly used by old people, so there's a lot of interacted with right wing or whatever content. I personally see none of it, and very little that's politically charged in general.
That's correct, but sort of missing the point. Facebook isn't deliberately training people on far right conspiracies. But those conspiracies happen to do a really (really) good job of evading what controls exist and end up being presented as "suggested content" to a bunch of people who, while ideologically susceptible to it, wouldn't ever see it otherwise.
And it's a real problem, because this garbage is just swimming in deliberate untruth.
And it's asymmetric. There is leftist lunacy in the world too, obviously, but it doesn't end up being presented to people on Facebook just because they clicked on a climate change link or liked a post about racial justice.
But if you're a retiree who follows your local evangelical church? Your feed is now telling you that masks don't work, that the government is conspiring in one of various Mind Control theories to control your life, that your relatives (the ones who click on the climate links) are already compromised.
It's really, really bad. Just try it. Go to facebook and interact with some totally mainstream right wing entities. Churches, republican party candidates or organizations, the local gun range. And watch what you start seeing.
Visiting reddit should give you the leftist version of boomer maga Facebook. It's filled always filled with emotionally manipulated misinformation. For each their own I guess.
See, that's the kind of false equivalency that proves the point. Reddit (at least high-engagements subs) is absolutely left-leaning. But... the content is true. It's not conspiracy nonsense.
Going to https://reddit.com right now, in fact, the top story on the site is indeed an /r/politics discussion about a Salon article on some Lauren Boebert campaign finance violations. Which is... left leaning! But true!
Top stories on Facebook tend to be things about vaccine denialism and ideas like "Trump's Victory Was Stolen". Just total whackjob idiocy.
It's not the same. Reading reddit shows you a ton of leftist techno hippies in their natural environment. It doesn't lead you to believe lies.