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People, not search-engine algorithms, choose unreliable or partisan news

Analysis of people’s web searches and visited websites suggests that it is more likely that they are choosing to engage with partisan or unreliable news than that they are being unduly exposed to it by search-engine algorithms.
  1. Eni Mustafaraj

    1. Eni Mustafaraj is in the Department of Computer Science, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts 02481, USA.

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Believing false news or conspiracy theories on the Internet has real-world consequences. For instance, a discredited conspiracy theory known as Pizzagate gave rise to the much bigger QAnon conspiracy, which ultimately contributed to the attack on the US Capitol building in January 2021 (see https://bbc.in/3zBFFcb). It’s often thought that the personalized algorithms of big platforms such as Facebook and Google facilitate exposure to problematic information1, keeping their users in ‘filter bubbles’ and ‘echo chambers’ that distort their view of reality2. But scientific studies that try to measure this phenomenon are rare. Writing in Nature, Robertson et al.3 describe their attempt to quantify both exposure to and engagement with online news. They show that a person’s choices trump Google Search’s algorithmic recommendations in terms of their consumption of unreliable or partisan news.

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Nature 618, 245-247 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01634-5

References

  1. Jack, C. Lexicon of Lies: Terms for Problematic Information (Data & Society, 2017).

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  2. Pariser, E. The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You (Penguin, 2011).

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  3. Robertson, R. E. et al. Nature 618, 342–348 (2023).

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  4. Bakshy, E., Messing, S. & Adamic, L. A. Science 328, 1130–1132 (2015).

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  5. Phillips, W. & Milne, R. M. You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our Polluted Media Landscape (MIT Press, 2021).

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  6. Robertson, R. E. et al. Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact. 2, 1–22 (2018).

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  7. Tripodi, F. Searching for Alternative Facts (Data & Society, 2018).

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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