【英文】纽约大学报告：社交媒体如何加剧美国政治两极分化（32页）

In the U.S., where partisan divisiveness  has reached new extremes, these consequences include declining trust in fellow  citizens and major institutions; erosion  of democratic norms like respect for  elections; loss of faith in the existence  of commonly held facts; and political  violence such as the January 6, 2021,  insurrection on Capitol Hill. This report analyzes the evidence  bearing on social media’s role in polarization, assesses the effects of severe  divisiveness, and recommends steps  the government and the social media  industry can take to ameliorate the  problem. We conclude that Facebook,  Twitter, and YouTube are not the original  or main cause of rising U.S. political  polarization, a phenomenon that long  predates the social media industry.  But use of those platforms intensifes  divisiveness and thus contributes to its  corrosive consequences. This conclusion is bolstered by a close reading of  the social science literature, interviews  with sociologists and political scientists  who have published studies in this area,  and Facebook’s own pattern of internally  researching the polarization problem  and periodically adjusting its algorithms  to reduce the fow of content likely to  stoke political extremism and hatred.

We focus on “affective polarization,” 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.  But as we illustrate, affective polarization  and its consequences are not distributed  evenly across the political spectrum.  Donald Trump’s presidency and his  continued infuence over many conservatives have helped push the right to  further extremes than the left has gone.  January 6 provides a vivid example. Our recommendations for diminishing the  degree to which social media heightens  affective polarization refect several themes:  This phenomenon constitutes a continuing threat to our democracy and requires  strong responses from President Biden,  Congress, and the social media industry  itself. Ideally, the major platforms would  have addressed these problems themselves. But having failed to self-regulate  suffciently, the companies have created  a need for Washington to intervene. Only  by means of vastly more disclosure about  how their algorithms rank, recommend,  and remove content will the platforms be  held accountable for the damage they  now cause to the political system and  society at large.