【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）

英文研究报告 2021年09月17日 07:41 管理员

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.