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The new data shows that the polarization of online political discourse has not changed drastically since the end of 2020. If you’ve ever looked online in the past year, that’s probably not surprising. But the data also show a fundamental pattern, in which individual issues such as abortion and immigration in turn trigger division. The issues fueling conversations have changed dramatically throughout the year, as people are constantly raving about political issues online.
Data from a joint project between Zignal Labs, a social media intelligence platform, and the University of Southern California helps explain why political discourse appears to be a never-ending cycle of anger in 2021.
Data
Zignal and USC, Polarization Index, It measures engagement with polarized content on Twitter and calculates a polarization score. Major political events have occurred since the index began tracking speeches last year, such as the January 6 uprising, the transition from Trump to the Biden administration, and the vast majority of the covid-19 vaccine. Meanwhile, the PI score barely moved.
While Twitter is far from being the perfect proxy for broader separatism, online platforms play a crucial role in shaping political discourse. Social media platforms like Meta (formerly Facebook) have come under scrutiny again this year, raising new doubts about the ethics of these platforms and how they can handle misinformation, extremism and hate speech online.
There has been a long-running academic debate about how to measure polarization, and a clear standard has yet to emerge. This index averages polarization scores from 1 to 100 for 10 political issues, including immigration, policing, racial equality, abortion, voting integrity, gun law, climate change, minimum wage, covid-19 vaccines, and health care reform (100 absolute polarization). . The spectrum of political bias is more polarizing than a stake from highly credible, more centered sources.”
Grouping media sources according to bias and credibility, Advertising Fonts Media Bias Tableis an independent news content rating company that identifies political trends and evaluates credibility based on original factual reporting.
Why did being online feel so bad this year?
The Polarization Index started with a score of 85.5 at the end of 2020, which researchers refer to as the “critical” level. The score dropped just 3 points at the start of 2021 and has remained consistent ever since.
Currently, immigration is the most polarized issue measured by the index, followed by policing policy, racial equality, and gun law. At the subject level, changes in polarization were much more widespread and degrees of polarization seemed to shift from subject to subject, keeping the overall score high.
Voting integrity, for example, was the second most controversial issue in Q4 2020, then dropped to sixth place out of 10 and moved up to fifth place in the second half of 2021.
The research, published alongside the Polarization Index, also found that news articles shared on the most polarized topics are more likely to come from unreliable, right-leaning sources. The report says that “interaction with right-leaning sources is more likely to push the conversation in an increasingly polarized direction.”
For example, this was the case for the most polarized topic, immigration: from the end of 2020, despite the third quarter of 2021, right-leaning sources with medium and low credibility dominated the conversation and the polarization score rose from 84.8. to 100.3 during the year. The model is consistent for other highly polarized issues.
what will come
Consistent with the results of Zignal’s research, it is well documented that more extreme content also tends to be more misleading.
“A lot of disinformation is top-down,” said Anya Schiffrin, director of the Technology, Media and Communications program at Columbia University. It comes from heads of state, it comes from politicians.” Schiffrin also attributes the problem to the lack of “watchdogs” to control the flow of content. Instead of, algorithmic recommendation systems on social media platforms tend to magnify excessive material.leads to a more “extreme internet,” as Schiffrin calls it.
Extreme digital media has given way to dramatic images of real-world violence this year. Examples of this relationship include: Facebook’s role in the post-coup violence in Myanmar and January 6 uprising in the USAIt was the result of a wave of disinformation about the election results.
At the request of MIT Technology Review, Zignal conducted an analysis that looked specifically at how people interact with different media sources over time on electoral confidence and voter integrity. The data show that interaction with less reliable sources on both the left and right is highest around the events of January 6, closest to the election.
At the end of 2020, the online conversation about voter integrity was dominated by engagement, particularly with less reliable right-leaning sources. This was also the period when the voter integrity polarization score was highest, reaching 95. According to the report, the high level of inconsistency caused by discrimination on voter integrity “lead to the January 6 events at the Capitol”.
In particular, highly reliable right-leaning sources accounted for only 0.017% of the total turnout on voter integrity, while highly reliable left-leaning sources accounted for around 36%.
by Pew Research study At the end of November 2020, 79% of Trump voters said the 2020 presidential election did not turn out well, compared to 6% of Biden voters.
Another election year is approaching and there is talk about the health of American democracy. stands out againis putting a new strain on social media.
Some reason for optimismHowever, it can be found throughout the Atlantic. The European Union is looking at two major bills in early 2022. Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Lawadministered by the French government. The bills aim to curb hate speech and its underlying advertising model, which is often regarded as one of the main challenges in stopping the spread of misinformation.
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