More recent research from Harvard's Shorenstein Center

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Showed that Facebook traffic continued to decline significantly for publishers after Facebook's algorithm change in January 2018. Prof. Grygiel calls for more algorithmic transparency on MSNBC. Algorithmic transparency To date, research into how Facebook’s algorithm works has been limited by a lack of access to its proprietary inner workings . It’s not enough to investigate the effects of Facebook’s News Feed changes . I think it’s important to understand why this happened, and to look more directly at Facebook’s business decisions and how they impact democracy.



A recent look at the company’s internal processes gambling data south africa shows that Facebook is beginning to understand the extent of its power . In July 2019, Bloomberg News revealed that the company had deployed software on its own platform to scan for posts that portrayed Facebook itself in potentially misleading ways , reducing their visibility in order to preserve the company’s reputation. Some international legal scholars have begun calling for laws to protect democracies from the possibility that algorithmic manipulation could generate electoral victories.



There is no evidence that Facebook’s changes were politically motivated, but it is not hard to imagine that the company could change its algorithms in the future if it wanted to. To guard against this risk, new laws could prohibit any changes to the algorithm during periods leading up to elections . In the financial sector, for example, “ quiet periods ” preceding major corporate announcements are intended to prevent marketing and public relations efforts from artificially influencing stock prices. Similar protections for algorithms against corporate manipulation could help ensure that politically active and power-seeking executives at Facebook — or any other company with significant control over users’ access to information — cannot use their systems to shape public opinion or voting behavior.