Government needs to regulate social media’s ‘affective polarization’ – US study

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 15/09/2021

As social media have failed to self-regulate, the US government needs to act.  Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are not the original or main cause of the rising political polarization, but the use of those platforms intensifies divisiveness and thus contributes to its corrosive consequences.

The conclusion is made in a study from New York University, Stem center for business and human rights that has studied the political polarization after the storming of the US Capitol and former president Donald Trump’s refusal to accept that Joe Biden won the presidential election.

The study says that President Biden needs to prioritize a broad government response to the heightening of partisan hatred by social media. “Biden should seek to persuade both lawmakers and the public that to avoid future versions of the Capitol insurrection, we must confront online polarization and its malign consequences.”

“SPREAD THE DISEASE”

The study says that “affective polarization,” is a form of partisan hostility characterized by seeing one’s opponents as not only wrong on important issues, but also abhorrent, unpatriotic, and a danger to the country’s future.

“This kind of hatred now infects American politics, and social media has helped spread the disease”, the study says adding that affective polarization and its consequences are not distributed evenly across the political spectrum.

“Donald Trump’s presidency and his continued influence over many conservatives have helped push the right to further extremes than the left has gone. January 6 (the storming of the Capitol) provides a vivid example”.

INCITE VIOLENCE

“The House Select Committee investigating the Capitol insurrection should devote ample resources to determining how technology was used to incite the violence on January 6. Panel members must make this a central line of inquiry and use their subpoena power to pursue it.”

The study also says lawmakers should promote transparency by passing legislation mandating more disclosure about the inner workings of social media platforms.

“Congress should empower the Federal Trade Commission to draft and enforce new standards for industry conduct.”

INDUSTRY STANDARDS

“We advocate legislation authorizing the FTC to collaborate with social media companies and other stakeholders to create industry standards that would be enforceable by the government.”

“While they grapple with social media as it now exists, legislators need to encourage exploration of alternatives to current business models. Some technologists and entrepreneurs are imagining a radically different, pro-democratic digital future; they deserve public support.”

ADJUST ALGORITHMS

”Social media companies should adjust algorithms to depolarize platforms more systematically. The platforms should create metrics to measure polarization and improve the “dial-turning” measures they now apply on an ad hoc basis to reduce antagonism during emergencies.”

”Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube should each double the size of their human content-moderation corps and make moderators full-fledged employees. This expansion would be expensive, but it would afford front-line reviewers more time to consider difficult content decisions. Bringing them in-house would lead to better supervision of reviewers and more careful analysis.”

The study is made by Paul M. Barrett, deputy director of the Center and adjunct professor at the NYU School of Law; Justin Hendrix, associate research scientist and adjunct professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and CEO and editor of Tech Policy Press; J. Grant Sims, Ropes & Gray research fellow at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.