Facebook algorithm change benefited Republicans, according to Miami University study
Republicans have long decried Facebook and social media as biased against them.
In the case of Facebook, a new study suggests the opposite may be true: Republican posts received significantly more attention on Facebook.
Facebook's change to its algorithm in 2018 may have boosted posts from local Republican groups leading to twice as many shares as Democrats
This was according to a study from two southwest Ohio colleges. The paper from Miami and Wright State universities was published in the journal Research & Politics
The researchers used Facebook's analytical app, CrowdTangle, to comb through the Facebook pages among the 3,200 county Republican and Democratic parties nationwide
They logged the average daily number of posts, likes, shares, comments and other interactions from January 2016 to August 2021.
From 2016 to 2018, there wasn't a difference in interactions, according to the study. Starting in 2019, posts from county GOP parties started taking off compared to their Democratic counterparts
In the first six months of 2019, Republican county party posts were shared 1.7 million times, double the shares of Democratic posts. Since then, Republican county party posts on Facebook continue to outpace Democrats.
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