Journal Article

Users Polarization on Facebook and Youtube

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

2016

Overview

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 promotion 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.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Age / Algorithms / Analysis / Artificial intelligence / Bias / Biology and Life Sciences / Cancer vaccines / Chambers / Comparative studies / Computer and Information Sciences / Conspiracy / Consumption / Digital media / Economic summit conferences / False information / Gossip / Humans / Immunotherapy / Influence / Information Dissemination / Internet / Medicine and Health Sciences / Models, Theoretical / Narratives / Online social networks / Periodicals as Topic / Social aspects / Social Media / Social Networking / Social networks / Social Sciences / User statistics / Vaccines / Websites