New research published Thursday offers an unprecedented dive into political behavior across Facebook and Instagram — two major online hubs where people express and engage with their political beliefs. The studies, published by an interdisciplinary set of researchers working in tandem with internal groups at Meta, encompasses four papers published in Science and Nature examining behavior on both platforms around the time of the 2020 U.S. election.
The papers — only the first wave of many to be published in the coming months — grew out of what’s known as the 2020 Facebook and Instagram Election Study (FIES), an unusual collaboration between Meta and the scientific research community. On the academic side, the project was spearheaded by University of Texas Professor Talia Jomini Stroud of the school’s Center for Media Engagement, and NYU’s Professor Joshua A. Tucker, who serves as co-director of its Center for Social Media and Po …
