[Air-L] Data analysis shows power of Facebook super-users to distort discourse

Philip Di Salvo phildisa at gmail.com
Fri Feb 11 05:39:40 PST 2022 

Dear all,

I'd add also that the article is labelled "The Facebook Papers", linking it
somehow to the Haugen's leak. It would be great to know more - for
curiosity's sake - what the authors mean with "drawing from Haugen’s
documents". *The Atlantic* was part of the media consortium that worked on
the leaked documents and it would be great if they shared them with
scholars for such a research.

Best,

Il giorno ven 11 feb 2022 alle ore 00:18 Denby Weller <dweller at swin.edu.au>
ha scritto:

> I’m really interested to hear from anyone on Adam’s question too. Thanks
> for asking, Adam!
>
> From: Air-L <air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org> on behalf of Adam Burke <
> adamburkemail at gmail.com>
> Date: Friday, 11 February 2022 at 10:58 am
> To: Listserv AOIR <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Data analysis shows power of Facebook super-users to
> distort discourse
>
> It's a good insight and this definitely seems consistent with dynamics on
> Facebook in general, or, indeed, with the sewer my Facebook feed quickly
> turns into if I don't ruthlessly focus it on personal friends and local
> community groups.
>
> As a researcher outside this specific communications / platforms / hate
> speech area, I am curious about one methodological thing.
>
> """
> For more than a year, we’ve been analyzing a massive new data set that we
> designed to study public behavior on the 500 U.S. Facebook pages that get
> the most engagement from users. Our research, part of which will be
> submitted for peer review later this year, aims to better understand the
> people who spread hate and misinformation on Facebook.
> """
>
> It seems an unusual choice to go to a big mainstream news publication as
> the first public outing of this analysis? I understand publication lead
> times can be long, but since a great deal of detailed work has clearly been
> done already, which the researchers have great confidence in, I'm surprised
> there isn't any pre-print or public report made available. A parallel
> release might also have made sense. There's lots of examples of this in
> other fields, but a recent one is the speed at which COVID research was
> able to proceed due to pre-print papers.
>
> Lack of a public research artifact also seems to make their research too
> easy for Facebook to dismiss:
> """
> Facebook declined to answer our questions for this article, and instead
> provided this statement: “While we’re not able to comment on research we
> haven’t seen, the small parts that have been shared with us are inaccurate
> and seem to fundamentally misunderstand how News Feed works. [...] "
> """
>
> Since there are many experienced researchers on the list, it would be great
> if someone could take the time to explain.
>
> Cheers
> Adam Burke
>
>
>
> On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 at 09:34, Alexandre A. Gonzales <
> aarnsgonzales at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > It is a very good article about Facebook (or Meta) indeed, and it
> reminded
> > me of the initiative from the Center for Internet and Society of India,
> > that submitted a policy consultation to the Facebook Oversight Board
> > regarding their "X-Check" system, or whitelisted accounts on the
> platform.
> > I do not know if the "superusers" analyzed in the The Atlantich article
> are
> > in the X-Check system, but its findings may help better understand the
> > function of the "X-Check" for the company
> >
> > To whom it may interest, here's the link to the submission presented to
> the
> > Oversight Board:
> >
> >
> https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/submission-to-the-facebook-oversight-board-policy-on-cross-checks
> <
> https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/submission-to-the-facebook-oversight-board-policy-on-cross-checks
> >
> >
> >
> > Em qui., 10 de fev. de 2022 às 15:19, Sarah Ann Oates <soates at umd.edu>
> > escreveu:
> >
> > > Wow, if you read or teach one article about FB, this should be it I
> > think.
> > > Sarah
> > > Sarah Oates
> > > Pronoun: she/her
> > >
> > > Professor and Senior Scholar
> > > Philip Merrill College of Journalism
> > > Distinguished Scholar-Teacher
> > > University of Maryland
> > > College Park, MD 20742
> > > Email: soates at umd.edu
> > > Phone: 301 455 2332
> > > www.media-politics.com<http://www.media-politics.com>
> > > Twitter: @media_politics
> > >
> > > *Support the UMD Student Crisis Fund
> > > <https://giving.umd.edu/giving/showPage.php?name=crisis-funding<
> https://giving.umd.edu/giving/showPage.php?name=crisis-funding>> today.
> > *
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Feb 10, 2022 at 1:15 PM Colin Delany <cpd at epolitics.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Makes perfect sense, based on what we know about the Fb algorithm.
> The
> > > > researchers have studied the patterns/effects in detail, and you
> might
> > be
> > > > interested in both the findings and the methodology.
> > > >
> > > > "And because Facebook’s algorithm rewards engagement, these
> superusers
> > > > have enormous influence over which posts are seen first in other
> users’
> > > > feeds, and which are never seen at all. Even more shocking is just
> how
> > > > nasty most of these hyper-influential users are. The most abusive
> > people
> > > on
> > > > Facebook, it turns out, are given the most power to shape what
> Facebook
> > > is."
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/02/facebook-hate-speech-misinformation-superusers/621617
> <
> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/02/facebook-hate-speech-misinformation-superusers/621617
> >
> > > >
> > > > --cpd
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > "How to Use the Internet to Change the World - and Win Elections: A
> > > > Comprehensive Guide to Digital Politics for Campaigns, Activists &
> > > > Advocates" [Ebook]
> > > > http://www.epolitics.com/winning<http://www.epolitics.com/winning>
> > > >
> > > > Colin Delany
> > > > Epolitics.com<http://Epolitics.com> -- digital strategy for
> politics and advocacy
> > > > http://www.epolitics.com<http://www.epolitics.com>
> > > > 202-422-4682
> > > > cpd at epolitics.com
> > > > @epolitics
> > > > _______________________________________________
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> >
> > --
> >
> > *Alexandre Arns Gonzales*Doutorando em Ciência Política (UnB/2017) -
> > Resocie - https://www.resocie.org/<https://www.resocie.org>
> > Bolsista/CAPES - Instituto da Democracia e Democratização das
> Comunicações
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-- 
*Philip Di Salvo*
Researcher, journalist: http://usi.to/mhi
@philipdisalvo <https://twitter.com/#!/philipdisalvo>
London

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