Facebook chooses polarization.

An internal Facebook analysis found that the platform was helping polarize the country, but senior executives decided to shelve the analysis and not take action, The Wall Street Journal reported.

One presentation given to senior executives warned that “if left unchecked,” Facebook would feed users “more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform.”

Kevin Roose, tech columnist @ The Times: “It raises the possibility that these presentations & others like them will come to be seen as a smoking gun for Facebook the way tobacco & oil companies had known about the hazards of their products years before they publicly admitted it"

Facebook Executives Shut Down Efforts to Make the Site Less Divisive

The social-media giant internally studied how it polarizes users, then largely shelved the research https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-division-top-executives-nixed-solutions-11590507499?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200527&instance_id=18835&nl=the-morning&regi_id=99976140&segment_id=29269&te=1&user_id=80d09aaa3acce56667ab4e8364212fad