Research Details

Abstract

Users online tend to select information that support and adhere their beliefs, and to form polarized groups sharing the same view -- e.g. echo chambers. Algorithms for content pro-motion may favour this phenomenon, by accounting for users preferences and thus limiting the exposure to unsolicited contents. To shade light on this question, we perform a comparative study on how same contents (videos) are consumed on different online social media -- i.e. Facebook and YouTube -- over a sample of 12M of users. Our findings show that content drives the emergence of echo chambers on both platforms. Moreover, we show that the users’ commenting patterns are accurate predictors for the formation of echo-chambers.

Type

Article

Author(s)

Alessandro Bessi, Fabiana Zollo, Michela Del Vicario, Michelangelo Puliga, Antonio Scala, Guido Caldarelli, Brian Uzzi, Walter Quattrociocchi

Date Published

2016

Citations

Bessi, Alessandro, Fabiana Zollo, Michela Del Vicario, Michelangelo Puliga, Antonio Scala, Guido Caldarelli, Brian Uzzi, and Walter Quattrociocchi. 2016. Users Polarization on Facebook and Youtube. PLoS ONE. 11(8)

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