Facebook as the Media
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/14/technology/facebook-is-said-to-question-its-influence-in-election.html
Recently facebook has been in the news for its influence during the election. The site was accused of distributing false news stories to its users both supporting Mr. Trump and defaming Mrs. Clinton. One story claimed that Pope Francis had endorsed Mr.Trump, while another claimed that an FBI agent associated with Mrs. Clinton had murder his wife and killed himself. Both of these stories came from fake news sites. Top executives at Facebook and employees a like have been questioning their role as a media outlet. Most of these employees and officers have acknowledged that many Americans get their news from their Facebook newsfeeds and agree that there may be an issue with the way in which they distribute news. Throughout it all Zuckerberg has insisted that Facebook is an unbiased place for people to share their opinions.
It can be shown that the stories on any given individual’s newsfeed tends to come from people who share similar opinions to the user who is seeing them. This leads to the people in support of Mr. Trump only hearing of the fake story while the people in support of Mrs. Clinton only hear of the story being fake. As these stories spread throughout facebook they influence the way in which people view the candidates, swaying them further to one side or the other, in what was a very divided election. Furthermore, since your Newsfeed is more likely to show you links from people you are close friends with, who are more likely to share your opinions, you tend to receive a biased opinion from Facebook. The influence held by a news system like this can be likened to an information cascade. As more and more people see that like minded people are accepting the candidate that they perceive as having a higher payoff they accept that candidate as well. Additionally people who were on the fence about the election would be more likely to accept the side that their friends were siding with, in order to maintain their social group.