officers started coming into the chamber and were being very loud. it was making a lot of commotion. the doors to the chamber are typically open and those doors they started shutting them. >> at some point, someone up in the chambers in the gallery, a member was yelling at the republicans to call trump and have trump call off his mob. >> there were freshmen there that i had gotten to know during orientation. this was their first real experience as a member of congress and we were watching them and talking to my fellow colleagues about what we could do to try to stop this. >> watch january 6 views from the house this week at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or listen on the free c-span radio app. of new york university's stern center joins

us. he is the lead author of a new report titled "fueling the fire." mr. barrett, start with the first half of that title. how do we quantify political polarization, and why is social media any worse in intensifying it than past mediums of communication? guest: academics quantify political polarization based on a thermometer that identifies the degree to which respondents to surveys condemn their opponents as opposed to how much affection they spread for those on their side of the political debate. that measure over time in the united states has increased steadily. we are now in a period of

extreme political polarization, which is to say people classifying those with whom they disagree as being an amazed of democracy, inherently -- and so forth. that environment, it is difficult for government to get things done. you end up with a lot of distrust in major institutions. social media has not caused that problem in the first instance, there was political polarization long before social media existed, but it has intensified the process. it has exacerbated the problem. in answer to your question with comparing it to other media, i

think it is the degree of pervasiveness of social media that makes it a particularly powerful instrument for misinformation and disinformation, and also in terms of its presence in people's lives is great. i read the newspaper in the morning, but social media for a huge part of the population is there in -- all the time wi >> staying on board as agent for a second, how about across time? is this the worst it has ever been compared to 1968 or in 1860? >> keeping it to one side, there

obviously, have been periods of intense pores asian before. i don't think anybody was measuring it the way scholars do today. certainly, civil war, almost by definition would qualify as intense political polarization. it has waxed and waned over a time. in the middle of the 20th century was an era of distinctly low degree of glory station. political parties were heterogeneous in terms of containing both conservatives and liberals. over time, beginning in the 60's, 70's, and rolling forward. the local parties reasserted themselves. conservative democrats went to the republican parties. liberal republicans became --

voted out of office or died off. you have very few you have political parties that are very distinct to the situation in the 1950's with democrats leaning to the left and republicans to the right. that is a situation we find ourselves in today. obviously, there are other tripping factors to polarization. -- contributing. the civil rights movements and political clashes a took place in response to that is one influence. in the media round, the rise of highly partisan talk radio, particularly on the right as well as a highly partisan cable television programming and in the last few years, the role of political leaders themselves has been an important contributing

factor. whatever one thinks about former president trump, his approach to politics is highly divisive. categorizing those with whom he clashed as being enemies of the state and lt of treason and that kind of thing. that has contributed to a high degree of pores asian. -- otherwise asian -- polarization. host: inviting you to join in. (202) 748-8000 four democrats. (202) 748-8001 ford republicans. (202) 748-8002 for independence. polarization and what can be done about it. how much blame do you assign to the companies themselves,

facebook, twitter, instagram? are they most at fault here. guest: let us set aside blame and fault and describe what features of those platforms contribute to this phenomenon and then people can decide themselves. the central engine behind the spread of incendiary, divisive content on platforms is there design. the automated systems, algorithms that power the lot forms are set up to maximize user engagement. to put in front of you, as you look at your computer screen, a material to which you will react

and react so strongly that you will share it, like it, comment on it and so forth. maximizing engagement is important to these platforms because engagement is a proxy for user attention. the user's attention is what they are selling to advertisers. that is why platforms like facebook, instagram, also owned by facebook, youtube, and a lesser degree putter are so lucrative. advertisers are eager to put their ads in front of people who are staring at their screens and are engaged. for better or for worse, i would think for worse, the type of material that engages people the most tens to be sensationalistic and likely to provoke strong negative emotional reactions.

all of that is almost set up for. i don't think it was done intentionally. to promote the spread of divisive material. can they do something about it? i think they can. a report we discussed, instances where we know the platforms have addressed the degree of this kind of highly provocative and divisive content. time will tell if they are doing that. they won't tell us how they do it exactly. in the emotional days after the 2020 elections, facebook let it be known that they had a turn the dial such that they were tamping down the amount of angry, divisive content, similarly in the days leading up to the verdict in the trial of

derek chauvin, ultimately convicted of killing george floyd, facebook again, making adjustments to calm things down a little bit. one of our recommendations is one -- these methods to modify algorithms should be systematically and not temporarily around times of social unrest and political violence. host: some of the finger-pointing at facebook is overblown they say. their vp of global affairs said this back at the end of march but this is what he said. what evidence there is does not support the idea that social media or the altar bubbles it creates are the unambiguous drivers of berets asian that many assert. one thing we do know is that political content is a small fraction that they consume on

facebook. our own analysis suggest in the u.s., it is perhaps 6%. guest: well, that latter part that local content is the small amount consumed by the entire body of people of facebook is neither here nor there. it is a red herring. 6% of billions of pieces of content is still a lot. i don't necessarily take that number at face value. some of facebook's statistics in the past have proven to be misleading. as to the idea that the evidence does not support the connection between social media and political polarization, is simply wrong. in our report, we point to in article in the journal of

science from 2020 with 15 eminent researchers from universe -- universities like harvard, stanford, and nyu concludes that while social media is not the original cause or prime mover of berets asian -- polarization, it does move the problem. in another academic journal, five researchers came to a similar conclusion. social media does not serve avenue -- as the first cause of the problem which it is a facilitator. it is important to be accurate and how you categorize a body of research and i think facebook is saying research doesn't support the idea that we are the main cause but that is not what anybody is asserting.

the assertion is that it is an accelerator. it is the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a fire. it may be burning but pouring gasoline will make it worse. host: let me let you talk with a few colors. >> i am a democrat. yes. i don't care what topic we discussed on the washington journal, c-span. all of this country's ills that are discussed can all be pointed in one direction: we elected a demonic political cult leader as president of the u.s. and donald trump has a cold following. until we can get those people to stop following him, i don't care if we are discussing covid and masks or the military or anything you bring up, it points

to one direction. he is a leader of a political demonic cult. he has always been insane. i knew him in new york. host: we got your point. guest: leaving everything your guest said to one side, whether you are a fan of him or a sharp critic, his style of leadership led to division as opposed to seeking reconciliation. in that sense, he and other political leaders have a choice about whether to contribute to the divisiveness or overcome it. second, it is important to observe that donald trump, himself, made use of social media in a crafty way.

he used twitter in particular but also facebook to some extent to project his messages. on many occasions, to attack his opponents as being enemies of the country. that is a very different attack from saying i disagree with somebody on an issue. by choosing that approach, it is fair to say that the former president did exacerbate political polarize asian and use social media to do it. -- polarization. >> good morning. would you classify the rights of last summer when the cities were burning as political violence? guest: in some cases where violence that accompanied the black -- black lives matter

protests directed at the police and government buildings and stores in neighborhoods where they took place, i would say that some of that could be categorized as political violence, sure. host: it sounded like you had a follow-up? >> other than that, from the previous color, i agree with he says about the divisiveness of president trump. could you talk about any divisiveness of any democratic presidency? guest: do you have any in mind? or go back to history? host: how about in 2021? are you seeing the same level of divisiveness on both sides, republican or democrat? guest: no. in our report, we point out and explain in some length that

polarization in this country at the moment and the consequences of it such as erosion of trust in democratic practices like elections, commonly held facts about how to respond to a lethal pandemic that those phenomena are not symmetrically arrayed across the political spectrum. academic research has found that polarization and the consequences of it has manifested themselves much more distinctly on the political right than they have on the left. i think a comparison of the political styles of the presidents who proceeded and followed donald trump illustrate that. one night, you can disagree with

barack obama with what he did or said. you can disagree with joe biden on his policies. i don't think there is much argument that those two democratic presidents took a more conciliatory style and frame their arguments less in the context of partisan hatred then did president trump. host: devon in mesquite, texas. independent. good morning. >> i have a few issues on social media would like to touch on. firstly, i played video games for a long time which is a form of social media. i have personally seen programs designed to create thousands of email accounts. they have robot verification and whatnot but it does not change the fact that people have alternate profiles out there.

following on that subject, when it comes to alternate profiles that completely displaces what social media is about: being social. i am wondering what your thoughts might be on that and how that can even spend -- go into things like adult social media platforms. guest: i don't have much to say about that. i am not familiar with that phenomenon of alternate screen ids on gaming platforms. that may be a source of some problems. it doesn't strike me as one of the central problems in this relationship between social media and political divisiveness. i could be wrong about that. host: the second half of your report title and what can be done about it.

talk a little bit about the companies themselves but you have recommendations for the federal government for the legislative and executive branches. guest: right. i think it would be preferable if the kinds of problems we talk about were dealt with through self regulation. through major social media companies making changes on their own initiative rather than having the government step in. however, the critique of social media companies has been strong and continuous, at least since 2016 and the revelations concerning the misuse of social media platforms by russian operatives who interfered with the presidential election that year. we have not seen enough change coming fast enough or running deep enough from the companies themselves. we have reached a point where we have to have greater government

regulation. the approach that we have suggested in our report is congress should authorize the federal trade commission's to provide for the first time, sustained oversight of social media industries. that the fcc should compile a code of standards for conduct of social media companies, not focusing on government control of content in any direct or indirect way but as the government establishes several requirements that have to do with transparency and the disclosure of how social media companies, algorithms, rank, recommend and remove at times, content. and with better understanding that those automated systems work.