WaPo:

For years, regulators and activists have worried that social media companies’ algorithms were dividing the United States with politically toxic posts and conspiracies. The concern was so widespread that in 2020, Meta flung open troves of internal data for university academics to study how Facebook and Instagram would affect the upcoming presidential election.

The first results of that research show that the company’s platforms play a critical role in funneling users to partisan information with which they are likely to agree. But the results cast doubt on assumptions that the strategies Meta could use to discourage virality and engagement on its social networks would substantially affect people’s political beliefs.

More coverage in NYT.