Facebook’s Vaccine Disinformation Study Shows the Problem with Facebook - Washington Monthly:

Facebook can’t do anything about the fact that there are large pockets of angry, low-trust conspiracy theorists online. But Facebook could do something about the fact that those pockets have disproportionate impact on a larger universe, because Facebook tailors its engagement algorithms to promote the most controversial voices. It is no surprise at all that a small number of obnoxious people on Facebook are impacting the opinions of much larger groups on Facebook. That’s what Facebook is designed to do! The platform is deliberately designed to get people to see exciting opinions and either argue with the opinion-maker–or to make them delve deeper into the rabbit hole and form likeminded closed communities around their (often newfound) belief systems.