Review of public posts of dozens of Facebook users sharing extreme right-wing views shows how Facebook rewards their lies and helped incubate the insurrection
I saw this play out in the Philippines too when I was reporting my story about President Duterte “influencers” on Facebook. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Stuart Andrew Thompson / @stuartathompson : months ago I decided to follow dozens of right wing groups and influencers. that effort (mostly doomscrolling tbh) proved incredibly prescient after last week's insurrection new from me and @cwarzel https://www.nytimes.com/... Mike Prada. Dank Ferrik / @mikepradanba : Everything described in here is about to get a whole lot worse in a post-COVID world. The inconceivable loss of life from the disease itself is bad enough. But it will also make our loneliness epidemic that much more devastating https://www.nytimes.com/... Evan Shapiro / @eshap : “A journey through feeds offers a glimpse of how Facebook rewards lies.” Likes & shares are crack. #Facebook is a pipe. Lies/Hate are fire. @Facebook has banned SOME dealers. But still, on their street corners, LIES SELL. @stuartathompson @cwarzel https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Josh Sternberg / @joshsternberg : Uses & Gratification Theory, but for social media and not TV. https://www.nytimes.com/... Marc Benioff / @benioff : Amazing story. “Facebook's algorithms have coaxed many Americans into sharing more extreme views on the platform — rewarding them with likes and shares for posts on subjects like election fraud conspiracies, Covid-19 denialism & anti-vaccination rhetoric.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Sara Schaefer / @saraschaefer1 : The like / RT / share button has ruined us. We've been conditioned to believe that the more numbers you get, the more you are “good” “correct” or “important.” Social media companies intentionally incentivize inflammatory all-or-nothing discourse. No regard for our wellbeing. https://twitter.com/... Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel : New: We mapped one part of an online phenomenon, which is when people go from normal poster to radical influencer almost overnight. this is a story about attention. how it's acquired/directed/weaponized. and the incredible costs. https://www.nytimes.com/... Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel : last year @stuartathompson were looking at how ppl become far-right facebook influencers and conspiracy group leaders. a trend we noticed is that some of them appeared out of nowhere. just normal posters searching for engagement until they hit the jackpot https://www.nytimes.com/... Elephant / @elephantjournal : “Beneath it, dozens of people posted comments that incl photos of weaponry—incl assault rifles—that they said they planned to bring to the rally. There were comments referring to ‘occupying’ the #Capitol & forcing Congress to overturn the election.” https://newrepublic.com/... Travis View / @travis_view : People ask “If Parler got shut down for its role in the Capitol siege, should Facebook get shut down too?” as if that's a trick question and the obvious answer isn't “Yes.” https://twitter.com/... Parker Molloy / @parkermolloy : Just thinking about when Congresswoman QAnon (R-GA) threatened to shoot @AOC @RepRashida @IlhanMN in a Facebook post last year, which wasn't enough to get her account suspended. https://twitter.com/... Patrick McHugh / @patrickjmchugh : We must never forget that this is a choice that @Facebook makes every day in order to make more money. Their own profit is more important to them than our democracy or even our lives. They must be held accountable. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Steve Kovach / @stevekovach : Sheryl Sandberg earlier this week: “I think these events were largely organized on platforms that don't have our abilities to stop hate, don't have our standards and don't have our transparency.” https://twitter.com/... Brooke Binkowski / @brooklynmarie : This is a good, depressing piece. I wanted to point out a couple of things that struck me as I was reading it https://twitter.com/... Hank Green / @hankgreen : This is deeply important context about how Facebook and identity and a search for affirmation leads to radicalization. https://www.nytimes.com/... Ezra Klein / @ezraklein : Over the years, I've had a lot of discussions with Facebook officials about how engagement-based, algorithmic social media changes people. They tend to argue it doesn't: It just reveals what's there. If you don't like how people really are, well, sorry! Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : I really do not understand Facebook's media/comms approach on issues like this. Sheryl's comments seem not just stupid, but ones that easily make her and Facebook look bad. https://www.techdirt.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Buried deep in this important read is a hint why Facebook is complicit. It's not about his ability to express harmful thoughts, it's about how FB endorses them virtually. “And yet when he talks about Facebook, he focuses on algorithms and optimization, not community or ideology.” Roger McNamee / @moonalice : Excellent by @cwarzel and @stuartathompson. One quibble: they equivocate re: FB impact on radicalization. (1) FB connects everyone, (2) rec engines push users towards extreme ideas, (3) Groups radicalize and organize action. https://www.nytimes.com/... Adrianne Jeffries / @adrjeffries : this is wild. post about normal stuff, no likes. post about stop the steal, hundreds of likes https://twitter.com/... Carl Quintanilla / @carlquintanilla : “.. for years, his feed was unremarkable,” but that changed “when he began posting about what he believed was suspicious activity around the vote.” “'Everyone has some type of thing that gave them a spark,' he said in an interview last week.” $FB https://twitter.com/... Taylor Lorenz / @taylorlorenz : Phenomenal reporting here https://twitter.com/... Bill Wasik / @billwasik : Fascinating reporting. In a lighter moment, this was a big theme of the book I wrote about Internet culture a decade ago — how the experience of “going viral” changes you https://twitter.com/... Aaron Huertas / @aaronhuertas : “Mr. McGee argued that he always thought this way. Before Facebook, he said, he watched conspiracy-laden videos on YouTube. Facebook merely helped him find his people.” https://twitter.com/... Mark Little / @marklittlenews : Fascinating stories in this piece. Nailing the role of algorithm-enabled grifters in the spread of disinformation. Optimising ideology for ever more powerful doses of love, power and sometimes money https://www.nytimes.com/... Kim Masters / @kimmasters : I was imagining a pie chart depicting how much of this belongs to Fox News and how much to Facebook, YouTube et al. https://twitter.com/... Melissa Gira Grant / @melissagira : Sheryl Sandberg, resign: https://newrepublic.com/... https://twitter.com/... Kevin Roose / @kevinroose : This effect — people optimizing their personalities for algorithmic reach — is not limited to the far right. But it's pretty clearly the main thing happening there. https://www.nytimes.com/... James Pethokoukis / @jimpethokoukis : But wait, how could FB “turn on” Trump if according to Trumpists it was always biased against him. 🤔 https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ David Carroll / @profcarroll : Meat puppets chasing neurotransmitter squirts delivered by Facebook. Ideology, morality, democracy, public health, family bonds, all that doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is juicing the algo for vanity metrics optimized for the Big Fascist Lies. https://www.nytimes.com/... Brian Stelter / @brianstelter : New from @stuartathompson and @cwarzel: “How Facebook Incubated the Insurrection” They show how FB's algorithms “have coaxed many Americans into sharing more extreme views on the platform...” https://www.nytimes.com/... Craig Silverman / @craigsilverman : Facebook says it's about fostering meaningful connection. But look at what it rewards & incentivizes. Post about your life, and only ppl close to you will care/engage. If you're lucky. Post conspiracies and outrage bait, and you can build a big audience. https://www.nytimes.com/... @anonymousaccord : How Facebook incubated the insurrection, the toxic mix of mendacity, grievance & violence that delivered during the last week's attack on the U.S. Capitol. Right-wing influencers embraced extremist views and Facebook rewarded them. @CheriJacobus @MaxBoot https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Charlotte Wolters / @charlttewolters : Yup. #Facebook is one of the more useless of social media platforms. But it's great at spreading misinformation, falsehoods and conspiracy theories. How Facebook Incubated the Insurrection https://www.nytimes.com/... Michael Nye / @mpnye : “Did Facebook cultivate more extreme beliefs or simply take what was already simmering and thrust it into the open?” https://www.nytimes.com/... John McDaid / @jmcdaid : Interesting longread case study of folks who leaned into conspiracy. Nut graf: “It wasn't until they tapped into an ecosystem charged by hyperpartisan politics that they were able to access the levels of engagement they desired.” https://www.nytimes.com/... @robertjoseph : This long read is very, very important for anyone who's curious about how all those varied people came to be in Washington last week. Closing Trump down on Twitter and FB is not the solution https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... @fboversight : Oh yes, Facebook IS complicit. https://twitter.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Kicker from @cwarzel @stuartathompson “'We're ready for anything. We have tons of gas masks. Tons of bullets. Tons of magazines. Tons of A.R.s. Anybody who's interested, hit me up. Hit me up on Facebook.'” https://www.nytimes.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The review places Facebook’s political-content problem in a longer arc: activist-run pages had already rivaled established media brands’ reach without the same journalistic standards. Facebook’s own engagement logic was also described internally as favoring emotionally resonant populist content, a dynamic captured in an executive’s account of right-wing engagement.
By connecting those incentives to the Capitol insurrection, the report treats amplification not as a neutral distribution choice but as a mechanism that shapes which political voices gain reach.
First-order effects
- Facebook’s ranking and sharing systems give extreme right-wing users and influencers a direct reward for false or escalating posts: more likes, shares, and audience reach.
- Users following those accounts encounter a feed environment that coaxes more extreme sharing, while Facebook bears the immediate accountability for failing to curb misinformation identified in the report.
Second-order effects
- Activist and influencer pages gain a distribution advantage over traditional media brands when engagement, rather than journalistic standards, determines reach.
- Creators on adjacent platforms have reason to optimize for confrontation and echo-chamber dynamics, as later described in an alt-right YouTuber’s account of tailoring videos for views.
Third-order effects
- If engagement systems continue to reward emotionally charged political falsehoods, political information markets will favor actors optimized for virality over institutions built around editorial standards.
- Platform trust becomes an operating constraint: Facebook’s content-ranking choices increasingly determine not only attention but the credibility and safety of the civic discourse it distributes.
The trend: Social platforms are moving from being treated as neutral channels toward being judged as incentive systems whose ranking rules shape political radicalization and public trust.