Early in Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat, as he unleashed a social media deluge of “stolen election” lies and conspiracy theories, Facebook reportedly enacted a series of algorithmic adjustments to combat the spread of misinformation specific to the 2020 race. While its not unheard of for the losing side to cry foul play, the aftermath of Joe Biden’s victory has featured unprecedented levels of conspiratorial denialism. This explosion is surely tied to Trump broadcasting conspiracy theories the second they pop into his brain, using Twitter and Facebook to instantly rile up his supporters as he bounces from one lie to the next. According to The New York Times, Facebook, apparently sensing the inevitable shitstorm that would proceed on Election Day, preemptively set up changes to what kind of content its algorithm could promote and demote, which was activated—a move that Mark Zuckerberg reportedly signed off on personally—after misinformation began circulating at alarmingly high rates during Trump’s first days of attempting to steal the race.
Among these changes, Facebook moved to show users more posts from established and more widely trusted news outlets, meaning that content from organizations like CNN, NPR, and the Times was more likely to appear as users scrolled through their timelines. The site had created an internal metric called “news ecosystem quality” scores, or NEQ, to rank which publishers should be prioritized by Facebook’s algorithm, meaning that posts from mainstream, less partisan media outlets would be more likely to appear on a user’s timeline. On the other side, publishers deemed hyperpartisan or untrustworthy receive lower NEQ scores, like the Trump-friendly Breitbart News or the popular progressive Facebook page Occupy Democrats. They were downgraded by the algorithm, even if those pages are typically highly trafficked.
Some Facebook employees welcomed the algorithm change with open arms; the Times reported that during a company meeting held a week after the election, there were calls for making the “nicer news feed” a permanent feature. (It is unclear clear whether or not Facebook is currently maintaining the timeline changes or if it has reverted its algorithm back to its pre-election state). Additionally, in an internal poll conducted by Facebook this month, employees expressed less pride in working for the company than they had in prior years, with only half of the respondents viewing the platform as a net positive for the world.
Facebook this month also released the results of “a series of experiments,” the Times noted, where users were asked if they think the platform hosts content that is “good for the world” or if it is creating a space for content that is “bad for the world.” The study found a correlation between posts with high engagement and those that users described as “bad for the world,” which led the company to create an algorithm that finds such posts and downgrades the likelihood that they will appear on users’ timelines. The algorithm was proven to be effective, but led to Facebook users to spend less time on the platform. “The results were good except that it led to a decrease in sessions, which motivated us to try a different approach,” stated an internal summary of the experiment’s results reviewed by the Times.
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