How minimizing conflicts could lead to polarization on social media: An agent-based model investigation

Abstract

Social media represent an important source of news for many users. They are, however, affected by misinformation and they might be playing a role in the growth of political polarization. In this paper, we create an agent based model to investigate how policing content and backlash on social media (i.e. conflict) can lead to an increase in polarization for both users and news sources. Our model is an advancement over previously proposed models because it allows us to study the polarization of both users and news sources, the evolution of the audience connections between users and sources, and it makes more realistic assumptions about the starting conditions of the system. We find that the tendency of users and sources to avoid policing, backlash and conflict in general can increase polarization online. Specifically polarization comes from the ease of sharing political posts, intolerance for opposing points of view causing backlash and policing, and volatility in changing one’s opinion when faced with new information. On the other hand, it seems that the integrity of a news source in trying to resist the backlash and policing has little effect.

Understanding dynamics of polarization via multiagent social simulation

“…The number of highly polarized users is the lowest when user tolerance is High. Our results are consistent with the earlier work (Coscia and Rossi 2022 ), which found lower levels of network polarization with high user tolerance in a social network.…”

“…Conversely, cross-cutting exposure (to uncongenial, i.e., attitude-disconfirming information) has a depolarizing effect (Kim 2015 ), though with caveats (Garrett et al 2014 ; Kim 2019 ). Second, user tolerance for ideas that contradict their own mitigates polarization (Coscia and Rossi 2022 ).…”

Bridging Echo Chambers? Understanding Political Partisanship through Semantic Network Analysis

“…Online discussions are more likely to be healthy and well-functioning when norms of respectful conversation are established (Grönlund et al, 2015). Having room for disagreement and debate, without concern of being ostracized, or shunned, could be vital to establishing healthy discussions (Coscia & Rossi, 2022; Grönlund et al, 2015; Nelimarkka et al, 2018). If one has a controversial opinion, it may be easier to express it to other sympathetic voices, and furthermore, there is a risk that users who perceive threats may exit the broader discussion altogether.…”

Quantifying ideological polarization on a network using generalized Euclidean distance

“…Despite a multitude of studies of polarization on social media (1-3), it remains disputed whether political polarization in digital public spaces is on the rise. Many analyses conclude that polarization is rapidly advancing (4)(5)(6)(7)(8), while others question this interpretation (9,10). The timeliness and relevance of this issue warrant a closer look at how these claims are made and raise an important question: How can we accurately quantify the level of polarization of a social system?…”