Honestly, it's kind of a wild claim to be seen in 2026, when, nearly over a decade ago, Facebook was abusing this exact thing and optimizing their social media algorithms specifically to manipulate and divide people because it increased engagement.

And here we are, seemingly having forgotten the past, which is barely even history at this point, and are finding ourselves surprised that the exact thing that was being built has the exact effect that it was being built to create.

Even more astonishing is the number of people in this comment section either arguing against that or refuting it.

The point of a sarcastic comment like mine, is to shame reuters for their shitty behavior, that has fallen behind the times.

As the other commenter has demonstrated, finding the study is easy. For everyone, including reuters. The reason they don't link them is cultural, they are so arrogant to believe they don't have to. Which pisses me off and sarcasm and ridiculing them is the only tool available to me to maybe make them stop eventually.