Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook

Not getting all sides of the news? People are increasingly turning away from mass media to social media as a way of learning news and civic information. Bakshy et al. examined the news that millions of Facebook users' peers shared, what information these users were presented with, and what they ultimately consumed (see the Perspective by Lazer). Friends shared substantially less cross-cutting news from sources aligned with an opposing ideology. People encountered roughly 15% less cross-cutting content in news feeds due to algorithmic ranking and clicked through to 70% less of this cross-cutting content. Within the domain of political news encountered in social media, selective exposure appears to drive attention. Science , this issue p. 1130 ; see also p. 1090