Taking the Long View - July 27, 2023
Taking the Long View - July 27, 2023
Facebook releases first studies from 2020 research
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Welcome to the first edition of Taking the Long View. As part of the revamping of my newsletter, I’m on a new posting schedule where:
Wednesdays will be a longer analysis-type piece (if you missed it yesterday, I released my second quarterly trends report!)
Thursday’s will be the calendar of events where I try to highlight the events you might not know about but should pay attention to - both in the short and long term.
Sunday’s will be the stories I found interesting from the week.
I purposely waited to send this until 2 pm Eastern today because, since the day I started this newsletter, I’ve had one thing that’s consistently on my topics to keep an eye on section: Facebook’s 2020 election research. This is an unprecedented effort Facebook undertook with researchers to understand the impact of Facebook and Instagram on key political attitudes and behaviors during the U.S. 2020 elections. And today, four of the studies were released.
You can read more about them here. Some of my key takeaways from them are:
This research is unprecedented - it's important to remember how unique it is for a platform to open up to researchers in this way voluntarily. This took forever to release because both Meta and the researchers wanted to do this the right way.
Results show the real trade-offs companies face - Making algorithmic changes to reduce certain types of content is not simple. They can reduce some good things and amplify bad ones and vice versa. So choices have to be made.
Polarization can't be studied in a vacuum - Many of the results for these four studies show that the changes made to people's feeds ultimately didn't affect their beliefs and opinions. People's political preferences are influenced by many factors - online and offline. Social media plays a role. Bad actors can manipulate it. But social media alone is not to blame for all our woes.
Assumptions are being challenged - The research attempts to look at many assumed impacts of social media, from filter bubbles, reshares, and amplification of political content. For many of these assumptions, the research did not confirm these. More research is needed, but we must be careful about what we assume is happening versus what actually is.
The left and right have very different online experiences - This makes it challenging for platforms when there is an external expectation of being "fair" across the parties regarding how much content is actioned against or what is amplified because how and which content they consume is very different.
Algorithms continue to change - Since this research was conducted, Facebook has changed its algorithms to reduce the amount of political content and show more unconnected content. Algorithms are always changing, and so while this is a very helpful snapshot, it is just that - a snapshot. This is why transparency is important so researchers can continue to study how these changes affect what people read and believe.
There is work yet to be done - No company - especially Facebook - should take this research as an excuse not to do this work. I’m breathing a small sigh of relief, but the threats are still there; they are ever-changing, and social media still plays a role.
A note on the Science cover.
It’s disappointing that the cover reinforces the idea that social media causes echo chambers when it’s much more nuanced than that. Science describes the cover artwork this way: “They are siloed and face away from each other because the architecture of platforms may facilitate echo chambers.”
However, while the research does show the left and right have different online experiences, as Meta points out, “Nature’s summary of one paper states that the findings ‘challenge views about the extent to which the ‘echo chambers’ of social media drive political polarization.’”
Nuance matters - as this research shows.
Speaking of elections, make sure to check out this dream job from OpenAI: Elections Lead, Public Policy.
Calendar
🚨NEW 🚨
August 3, 2023 - Amazon Q2 Earnings Call
May 20, 2024 - Trump trial on classified docs
Topics to keep an eye on:
TV shows about Facebook - Doomsday Machine and second season of Super Pumped
Mid-July - Code of practice on disinformation platform reports due
August 3, 2023 - Apple Earnings Call
August 10 - 13, 2023 - Defcon
August 20, 2023 - Guatemala runoff
August 21, 2023 - Meta responses to Oversight Board recommendations in Brazil election case due
August 23, 2023 - Zimbabwe Election
August-2023 – Eswatini election
August 23, 2023 - First GOP Presidential Primary Debate
August 28, 2023 - Meta response due to Oversight Board decision on Cambodian Prime Minister
August - End of UK parliamentary session. Must pass Online Safety Bill by then.
Mid-September: All Tech Is Human - Responsible Tech Summit NYC
September 10, 2023: Russia to hold elections in four Ukrainian provinces
September 19, 2023 - UN General Assembly high-level debate begins
September 27-29, 2023: Athens Democracy Forum
September 28-29, 2023 - Trust & Safety Research Conference
TBD September: Atlantic Festival
TBD September: Unfinished Live
September 2023 – Bhutan election
September 2023 – Tuvalu election
September 9, 2023 – Maldives election
September 28-29, 2023 - The Atlantic Festival
September 30, 2023 – Slovakia election
September 2023 – Rwanda election
October 2023 – Oman election
October 2023 Poland election
October 8, 2023 – Pakistan election
October 10, 2023 – Liberia election
October 14, 2023 – New Zealand election
October 22, 2023 – Switzerland election
October 29, 2023 – Argentina election
October 2023 – Gabon election
October 2023 – Ukraine election
November 15, 2023 - Aspen Cyber Summit
November 20, 2023 – Marshall Islands election
November 29, 2023 – Argentina election
December 1-3, 2023: Build Peace 2023 Conference
December 20, 2023 – Democratic Republic of the Congo election
December 2023 –Togo election
2023 or 2024 – Peru election
TBD – Dominica election
TBD – Luxembourg election
TBD – Myanmar election
TBD – Spain election
TBD – Gabon election
TBD – Madagascar election
TBD – Haiti election
TBD – Libya election
TBD – Singapore election
2024
January 15, 2024 - Iowa GOP Caucus
January 2024 – Bangladesh election
January 2024 – Finland election
January 13, 2024 – Taiwan election
February 4, 2024 – El Salvador election
February 4, 2024 – Mali election
February 14, 2024 – Indonesia election
February 25, 2024 – Senegal election
February 25, 2024 – Belarus election
March 8-16, 2024 - SXSW
March 17, 2024 – Russia election
March 31, 2024 – Ukraine election
April 10, 2024 – South Korea election
April 2024 – Solomon Islands election
April 2024 – Maldives election
May 5, 2024 – Panama election
May 19, 2024 – Dominican Republic election
June 2024 – Mongolia election
June 6-9, 2024 - EU Parliament Elections
July 7, 2024 – Mexico election
July 15 - 18, 2024 - Republican National Convention
August 19 - 22, 2024 - Democratic Convention, Chicago
October 27, 2024 – Uruguay election
October 2024 – Mozambique election
October 2024 – Chad election
November 2024 – Guinea Bissau election
November 2024 – Moldova election
November 2024 – Romania election
November 5, 2024 – United States of America election
November 12, 2024 – Palau election
December 2024 – Croatia election
TBD – Algeria election
TBD – Austria election
TBD – Belgium election
TBD – Botswana election
TBD – Burkina Faso election
TBD – Chad election
TBD – Comoros election
TBD – Croatia election
TBD – Dominica election
TBD – Egypt election
TBD – Ethiopia election
TBD – Georgia election
TBD – Ghana election
TBD – Iceland election
TBD – India election
TBD – Iran election
TBD – Jordan election
TBD – Kiribati election
TBD – Kuwait election
TBD – Lithuania election
TBD – Madagascar election
TBD – Mauritania election
TBD – Mauritius election
TBD – Montenegro election
TBD – North Korea election
TBD – North Macedonia election
TBD – Romania election
TBD – Rwanda election
TBD – San Marino election
TBD – Slovakia election
TBD – South Africa election
TBD – South Sudan election
TBD – Syria election
TBD – Tunisia election
TBD – United States of America election
TBD – Uzbekistan election
TBD – Venezuela election