Bing News Joins Google and Other News Aggregators in Fueling Polarization

People who rely on major news aggregators like Google News, Bing News and Yahoo! News for their political news are being ensconced inside filter bubbles, and this drives greater polarization, division and dysfunction in society overall.

Filter bubbles occur when someone is exposed only to one-perspective, or only to news that confirms his or her existing beliefs. Research repeatedly shows that when people only see one side, they become less tolerant of people and ideas that are different then they are. We, as a society, grow more divided and less accepting of each other.

Multiple analyses have found that major news aggregators are heavily biased. Sixty-one percent of media outlets presented on Google News' homepage over a five-day period were from left media sources, with just 3 percent from outlets on the right in the days leading up to the 2022 midterms. An analysis of 588 curated articles published by Yahoo! News in April 2022 showed that 65 percent were from media outlets on the left, and just 5 percent were from outlets on the right. And a brand-new analysis of Bing News shows even worse balance than Google or Yahoo: Bing News' homepage displayedzero articles from sources on the right during the two-week period studied.