Taking a look back: is Facebook really causing polarization?

A few weeks ago, I spotted a headline in one of the New York Times that the college offers: Facebook Finds Opposing Views Trickle Through. This was about a week after we had been discussing the "filter bubble", the idea that one's choices of sites and online contacts limits their exposure to ideas contrary to our own. This idea received the minimum of contest, to my memory. It would make sense for one's Facebook circles to be largely composed of those with similar political views as our own. However, the claim that they put forth is that it is the users themselves, not so much Facebooks arcane mechanisms, that cause the construction of this safe space from contrary opinion.

Of course, to take this study's claims at face value would be foolish. Given that it was Facebook itself that ran through its own data, which it is using to proactively defend its own reputation, the report is suspicious. This academic blog post by Christian Sandvig outlines the study's weaknesses rather well.

In any case, we are left with the same set of questions as when we first discussed this:

• Does the internet create safe spaces from the opinions of others?
• Do these isolated spaces cause radicalization of opinions?
• Given that this trend in media is seen as simple market behavior, could this simply be human nature?
• Similarly, how much of this issue is caused by conscious decision, as opposed to basic instinct?
• What other sites/mechanical forces are limiting our exposure to contrary information? Google/other search engines? Newsfeeds?