Facebook algorithm change benefited Republicans, according to Miami University study

Republicans have long decried Facebook and social media as biased against them.

Former President Donald Trump remains suspended from Twitter and Facebook. Republican lawmakers and influencers have chafed at the disclaimers and fact checks tagged onto their posts. 

In the case of Facebook, a new study suggests the opposite may be true: Republican posts received significantly more attention on Facebook.

Do you know what Facebook tags are?: Facebook fed violence, nudity posts to users with low digital literacy

The story of Carol and Karen: Two experimental Facebook accounts show how the company helped divide America

Facebook's change to its algorithm in 2018 may have boosted posts from local Republican groups leading to twice as many shares as Democrats, according to a study from two southwest Ohio colleges. The paper from Miami and Wright State universities was published Wednesday in the journal Research & Politics.

"A lot of content is controlled by algorithms we don't understand," said Kevin Reuning, an assistant professor of politics at Miami University and one of the co-authors of the study. Facebook has never confirmed what its algorithm is based on, he said. "Changes to these algorithms can have changes we don't expect. Because there's no transparency, we don't know what happened. We don't know what is happening until years later."

The researchers used Facebook's analytical app, CrowdTangle, to comb through the Facebook pages among the 3,200 county Republican and Democratic parties nationwide. About 68% of local parties have a Facebook page

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, according to the study.

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.

On Twitter, the researchers found no consistent gap during the same time frame.

It just so happens that Facebook changed its algorithm in 2018 to prioritize what it calls "meaningful social interactions." While Facebook hasn't divulged the nature of its algorithm, internal documents from former Facebook executive and whistleblower Francis Haugen provided to Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission provide some insight. Haugen has argued that the algorithm change promoted angrier and more divisive content.

Messages to Facebook's parent company Meta were not returned.

The study can't definitively say whether the disparity between Republican and Democrat posts is due to the algorithm. The increased shares and likes for GOP posts certainly coincide with the change, the researchers said.

Republicans, Democrats 'shocked'

The results surprised both Republicans and Democrats in Ohio.

"I’m shocked, said Kathy Wyenandt, chairwoman of the Butler County Democratic Party. Butler County is a Republican stronghold in the suburbs just north of Cincinnati and the home of Miami University in Oxford. "It certainly is a problem that an organization would favor one party over another."

She said she personally hadn't noticed a bias one way or the other on Facebook. But she said the Butler County Democrats mainly use Facebook and social media as a bulletin board to post about events and get-out-the-vote efforts, not start arguments, she said.

Some Republicans remained unconvinced that Facebook isn't against them. Hamilton County GOP Chairman Alex Triantafilou posts a lot on both Twitter and Facebook.  Triantafilou said he feels many of his posts on his personal page get noticeably fewer likes and shares than they did five years ago.

The county party's official page doesn't post as much as it used to, Triantafilou said.  The Hamilton County GOP now makes a handful of Facebook posts each month, usually about fundraisers and events.

"My own personal experience is that some of what I’ve posted that has a center-right tilt gets little traction," Triantafilou said. "Our party’s page frankly, it got so little traction, that we rarely use it."

The county party is much more active and confrontational on Twitter, with recent posts calling President Joe Biden "delusional" and openly criticizing Democrats.

Triantafilou said he and four other people he's selected have access to the party's social media accounts. The party's main social media policy is not to attack other Republicans.

"I don't like to ever to say things on social media we wouldn't just say in public to someone we are encountering," he said.

Is the GOP more divisive or more engaging?

So what gives? Are Republicans' posts more divisive and confrontational on social media? Are they more engaging? Is it something else?

There isn't a certain answer.

Researchers in the study also looked at Twitter and tweets from the county parties from 2016 to 2021. They found no consistent and significant disparity between Democrat and Republican engagement on Twitter. That indicated to them the issue was particular to Facebook, according to the study.

The researchers, in their conclusion, noted "anger is a potent force in both politics and social media engagement."

They hypothesized Republicans might post more content "consistent with these characteristics."

They also speculated that Facebook, fearing a conservative backlash, may have overcompensated to fend off criticism.

Whatever the reason, both Republicans and Democrats told The Enquirer they don't think it's right that any algorithm should benefit one party over the other.

Josh Jaffe, chairman of the Franklin County GOP in central Ohio, didn't have an opinion on whether Facebook is biased. But if it's true that it favors Republicans over Democrats, he said he doesn't think that's right.

"They shouldn’t be putting their thumb on the scale," Jaffe said. "I don’t care which side they’re putting it on."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Facebook algorithm boosted Republicans more than Democrats