In one internal memo from November 2019, a Facebook researcher noted that 'Angry,' 'Haha,' and 'Wow' reactions are heavily tied to toxic and divisive content.
'We consistently find that shares, angrys, and hahas are much more frequent on civic low-quality news, civic misinfo, civic toxicity, health misinfo, and health antivax content,' the Facebook researcher wrote. In April 2019, political parties in Europe complained to Facebook that the News Feed change was forcing them to post provocative content and take up extreme policy positions.
In a memo titled 'Political Party Response to '18 Algorithm Change,' a Facebook staffer wrote that 'many parties, including those that have shifted strongly to the negative, worry about the long-term effects on democracy.' One political party in Poland told Facebook that the platform's algorithm changes forced its social media team to shift from half positive posts and half negative posts to 80% negative and 20% positive.