Neutral bots probe political bias on social media.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Chen W
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8458339 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Neutral bots probe political bias on social media.
Chen Wen W Pacheco Diogo D Yang Kai-Cheng KC Menczer Filippo F
Nature communications 20210922 1
Social media platforms attempting to curb abuse and misinformation have been accused of political bias. We deploy neutral social bots who start following different news sources on Twitter, and track them to probe distinct biases emerging from platform mechanisms versus user interactions. We find no strong or consistent evidence of political bias in the news feed. Despite this, the news and information to which U.S. Twitter users are exposed depend strongly on the political leaning of their early ...[more]
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