Authors:Jonathan Stray, Ian Baker, George Beknazar-Yuzbashev, Ceren Budak, Julia Kamin, Kylan Rutherford, Mateusz Stalinski, Tin Acosta, Chris Bail, Michael Bernstein, Mark Brandt, Amy Bruckman, Anshuman Chhabra, Soham De, Kayla Duskin, Sara Fish, Beth Goldberg, Andy Guess, Dylan Hadfield-Menell, Muhammed Haroon, Safwan Hossain, Michael Inzlicht, Gauri Jain, Zaria Jalan, Yanchen Jiang, Alexander P. Landry, Yph Lelkes, Hongfan Lu, Peter Mason, Jennifer McCoy, Smitha Milli, Paul Resnick, Emily Saltz, Martin Saveski, Lisa Schirch, Max Spohn, Siddarth Srinivasan, Alexis Tatore, Luke Thorburn, Joshua A. Tucker, Robb Willer, Magdalena Wojcieszak, Manuel Wüthrich, Sylvan Zheng
Abstract:We report the first direct comparisons of multiple alternative social media algorithms on multiple platforms on outcomes of societal interest. We used a browser extension to modify which posts were shown to desktop social media users, randomly assigning 9,386 users to a control group or one of five alternative ranking algorithms which simultaneously altered content across three platforms for six months during the US 2024 presidential election. This reduced our preregistered index of affective polarization by an average of 0.03 standard deviations (p < 0.05), including a 1.5 degree decrease in differences between the 100 point inparty and outparty feeling thermometers. We saw reductions in active use time for Facebook (-0.37 min/day) and Reddit (-0.2 min/day), but an increase of 0.32 min/day (p < 0.01) for X/Twitter. We saw an increase in reports of negative social media experiences but found no effects on well-being, news knowledge, outgroup empathy, perceptions of and support for partisan violence. This implies that bridging content can improve some societal outcomes without necessarily conflicting with the engagement-driven business model of social media.
From: Jonathan Stray [view email]
[v1]
Fri, 20 Mar 2026 04:10:56 UTC (5,578 KB)
[v2]
Tue, 18 Aug 2026 01:47:01 UTC (5,581 KB)
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