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Facebook will pay tens of thousands of users to quit the app ahead of the election so it can study the platform’s impact on politics

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Business Insider, September 2020

Facebook will pay users of its main app and Instagram as part of a study it’s conducting ahead of the 2020 US elections, The Washington Post journalist Elizabeth Dwoskin reported on Thursday.

On Monday, Facebook announced its plans for the study, a partnership with 17 outside academic researchers that  aims to “better understand the impact of Facebook and Instagram on key political attitudes and behaviors.”

“It will examine the impact of how people interact with our products, including content shared in News Feed and across Instagram, and the role of features like content ranking systems,” the company said, by asking some Facebook and Instagram users to deactivate their accounts or agree to “targeted changes” to their experiences ahead of the November elections and running through December.

Continue reading at Business Insider.

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