As sentiment about big tech companies has worsened, emerging conventional wisdom has held that social networks are primary causes — and accelerants — of polarization in the United States. The rise of social networks has been roughly correlated with the rise of authoritarians here and elsewhere. Surely social networks, with their algorithmic feeds pushing the most emotional posts to the top of our attention, are warping our politics?
New research suggests that this may not be the case. In a working paper published this year, Levi Boxell, Matthew Gentzkow, and Jesse Shapiro found that polarization had increased faster in the United States than anywhere else — but that in several large, modernized nations with high internet usage, polarization was actually decreasing.
“One theory this lets us reject is that polarization is a byproduct of internet penetration or digital media usage,” wrote Ezra Klein, my Vox Media colleague, in a piece last month. “Internet usage has risen fastest in countries with falling polarization, and much of the run-up in US polarization predates digital media and is concentrated among older populations with more analogue news habits.”
Ezra expounds on these dynamics in his fascinating new book Why We’re Polarized, discussion of which has dominated both my Twitter and podcast feeds since it came out last month. (I particularly enjoyed his chats with Jill Lepore, Jamelle Bouie, and Ta-Nahesi Coates.) Recently I invited Ezra to answer a few questions I’ve had about the Boxell study and other issues raised by his book, and he was gracious enough to agree.
Recent research doesn’t quite let social networks off the hook. But Ezra’s analysis has challenged some of my own beliefs about Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and their collective effect on our politics. I hope you enjoy the conversation — and I encourage you to pick up his book here.
Casey Newton: One of the more counterintuitive arguments that you make in your book, at least for me, is that social networks aren’t polarizing in the way that we often think they are. How did you reach that conclusion, and why do you find the research persuasive?
Ezra Klein: Hmmm. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re not polarizing. What I’d say is they’re not core to the broad story of polarization, much of which predates social media. There’s also not much evidence for the echo chamber effect, at least not in the way people tend to think of it. I cite, for instance, a well-designed experiment in which Democrats and Republicans on Twitter were paid to follow people from the other side. The exposure made the Republicans more conservative and the Democrats, if anything, more liberal, though the effect wasn’t statistically significant. I also cite some experiments on cable news, which has similar dynamics, where people were forced to watch, and the big finding was that the only people who had their minds changed were those who didn’t want to watch it — when they altered the study design so people could watch something non-political, those folks did, and the persuasive effect melted away.
That’s all to say that the people who read politics Twitter or watch cable news tend to do so because they already know what they believe, and they’re following politics to track whether their candidates, party, or ideas are winning or losing. They’re not easily persuadable.
I found this all surprising because of a conversation I had last year with someone who worked on these issues for one of the big social networks. They told me that the people most likely to post about politics are the most partisan. As a result, if you look at Facebook or Twitter a lot, you tend to only see the most partisan opinions. Over time, this person said, that can’t help but have a polarizing effect.
Is it possible that the research on this subject to date simply hasn’t been done over a long enough time frame to have captured an effect?
I think it does have a polarizing effect, but it’s primarily polarizing because it further polarizes elites, who then act in more polarized ways, which create more polarized choices and situations that the mass public has to respond to. An example of this is impeachment. Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani got very invested in a Joe Biden conspiracy theory promoted on Breitbart and Fox News. That led them to invest considerable administration resources in trying to prove the conspiracy true, or tar Biden with it. That led to the whistleblower report, and then to the hyper-polarizing impeachment process. So there was a dynamic here in which the ultimate political elite — the president — responded to the polarized political media he consumed by doing something that then everyone else had to respond to. You don’t need a big audience to change American politics, you just need the right audience.
That, I suspect, is more how social media is polarizing: political elites are on Twitter every day, and for all the warnings that Twitter isn’t real life, it feels like real life to them. They’re stuck in a hyper-polarized informational system, and it influences the decisions they make, the candidates they support, the messages they emphasize, the stories they focus on. When people say Twitter isn’t real life, they mean it’s not representative of mass opinion. They’re right! But neither is American politics. Political elites have outsized effect on the structure of politics, and if they become more polarized, and act in more polarized ways, that will ultimately polarize the public simply by presenting them with very polarizing choices to respond to.
One simple way to put this is that the 2020 election looks likely to be between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Both of those candidates have been buoyed by intense social media fandom, in a way that helped them triumph over less controversial, more coalitional, competitors. They present a far starker — and thus more polarizing — choice than, say, Al Gore and George W Bush, who ran their campaigns in ways that muddied the differences between them in 2000. I think social media is part of why politics is selecting for sharper-edged candidates, and that’s leading to a different political reality that even those who aren’t on social media need to face.
Before I started reading your work on this, my instinct was that platforms should take steps to become less polarizing. But you make the point that the mid-century period where American politics were least polarized may have been a historical anomaly — one that emerged from a racist compromise between Democrats and Dixiecrats. In this view, it’s not at all clear that polarization itself is a problem — in a democracy, we’re meant to fight about things!
Let me break that into two pieces. First, the alternative to political polarization is often political suppression — disagreements get suppressed rather than resolved. That’s certainly how the political system treated civil rights for much of the 20th century, bottling up bills in the Rules committee, filibustering them in the US Senate, or neutering them through agreement with the Southern Dixiecrats. But that doesn’t mean polarization is always and everywhere good, nor that the social media networks shouldn’t think about how to reform themselves. I have a longer discussion in the book about the kind of speech and voices that are selected for by algorithms that are sorting off the intensity of emotional response, but I don’t think it’s a great foundation atop which to structure political communication.
You explain how polarization makes governance much harder in the United States, and all the very serious problems that come along with that. But it’s now much less clear to me what platforms ought to do about it, if anything. If platforms found a way to promote agreement and consensus-building, should they? (Twitter has been studying this for almost two years now, with almost nothing to show for it so far.)
In general, I don’t think the platforms are going to fix the problems of American politics. But I do think they could fix the problems of the platforms. People have a million ideas here, but I’ll just state the most obvious: I think the move towards algorithmic feeds that select for content that triggers an intense emotional response is just a bad way to structure communication. I think supercharging our social instincts often brings out the worst, not the best, in us — few look back fondly on the social dynamics of high school cafeterias, and for good reason.
One thing I’ve been doing recently is reading past critics of television, like Neil Postman and Jerry Mander. And something that’s striking about their arguments is they were largely (though not entirely!) right. In many cases, the rise of televisual culture created problems much worse than anything they could’ve imagined, and an approach to politics-as-entertainment that would’ve read like parody if they had included it as a thought experiment in their books. I think there’s a dominant view that every new communications medium comes with critics but we’re still here and the medium prospered so the critics must’ve been wrong, right? No. Sometimes the critics were right, and what they feared came to pass, and we just learned to live with it.
I don’t know what I’d do with these platforms if I ran them. Being inside a system, as I argue in the book, warps your judgment. But to use Twitter’s emphasis on healthy conversations as an example, what if the way to have a healthy conversation is simply inimical to the nature of Twitter — that is to say, what if you’d never, starting from first principles, built healthy conversations around 280-character bursts that are judged by the social reaction they create among an audience that’s consuming them in an environment that is, to say the least, not conducive to reflection?
Finally, you wrote a good piece last week about how a Michael Bloomberg victory in the Democratic primary would set a bad precedent, in part because it would represent the triumph of raw spending power over any other candidate attribute. (As of last week Bloomberg had spent $417 million, much of it on Facebook, Google, and Twitter ads.)
So far, it seems that Democratic voters are rejecting Bloomberg’s candidacy in large numbers. Assuming you’re right, and that Sanders wins the nomination, will that suggest that these days it’s better for a candidate to be polarizing than to be rich?
I don’t think there’s any doubt of that, actually. We saw it in 2016, too: Money matters, but if it was the only thing that mattered, Jeb Bush would be president now.
The Ratio
Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.
“Despite YouTube’s ubiquity and its role as a public-facing platform, it remains a private forum, not a public forum subject to judicial scrutiny under the First Amendment,” writes McKeown, adding that both the First Amendment and Supreme Court precedent present “insurmountable barriers” to PragerU’s argument.
The standoff over Pakistan’s digital censorship law, which would give regulators the power to demand the takedown of a wide range of content, is the latest skirmish in an escalating global battle. Facebook, Google and other big tech companies, which have long made their own rules about what is allowed on their services, are increasingly tangling with national governments seeking to curtail internet content that they consider harmful, distasteful or simply a threat to their power.
⭐ Robots aren’t taking our jobs – they’re becoming our bosses. In warehouses, call centers, and other sectors, intelligent machines are managing humans, and they’re making work more stressful, grueling, and dangerous. Fantastic, wide-ranging investigation from The Verge’s Josh Dzieza:
These automated systems can detect inefficiencies that a human manager never would — a moment’s downtime between calls, a habit of lingering at the coffee machine after finishing a task, a new route that, if all goes perfectly, could get a few more packages delivered in a day. But for workers, what look like inefficiencies to an algorithm were their last reserves of respite and autonomy, and as these little breaks and minor freedoms get optimized out, their jobs are becoming more intense, stressful, and dangerous. Over the last several months, I’ve spoken with more than 20 workers in six countries.For many of them, their greatest fear isn’t that robots might come for their jobs: it’s that robots have already become their boss.
In a podcast interview with NBC, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg defended Facebook’s data collection practices. “There is growing concern, which is based on a lack of understanding, that we are using people’s information in a bad way. We are selling it. We are giving it away. We are violating it. None of that’s true. We do not sell data,” she said. Listen to this one — I’ll likely have more to say about it next week. (Dylan Byers / NBC)
LinkedIn is testing Snapchat-like stories. The company is calling the feature “a new conversational format” for business conversations. LinkedIn is just Facebook in slow motion, volume infinity. (Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge)
Imagine waking up one day and learning on Instagram that your ex-boyfriend of seven years is dating Lady Gaga. This happened to Lindsay Crouse!
Maybe a decade ago I would have subscribed to US Weekly. Today there’s no need: I have the parade of people in my phone. I mix “real” celebrities with people I know and I can curate it all however I want. Then I scrolled through Instagram and saw a post from Lady Gaga: she was sitting in her new boyfriend’s lap.
Friends from college liked it — along with nearly three million others.
Crouse seems to be taking only the best, most inspirational lessons from this entire state of affairs. Read it!
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
