Do you have any evidence that "inflammatory" opinions are disproportionally prominent compared to the fraction of people who hold said opinions?
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/26/21270659/facebook-divisio...
"“Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness,” one slide from the presentation read. The group found that if this core element of its recommendation engine were left unchecked, it would continue to serve Facebook users “more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform.” A separate internal report, crafted in 2016, said 64 percent of people who joined an extremist group on Facebook only did so because the company’s algorithm recommended it to them, the WSJ reports."
WSJ further mentions that "some proposed changes would have disproportionately affected conservative users and publishers"
To me this is a sign that the presentation was made by a partisan inside of Facebook. All in all, I don't think this is very confidence inspiring.
We would really need some third party to do a better job of investigating this.
When even internal research suggests that their platform drives division your conclusion is they're overstating their case, people who are on facebooks payroll?
That's like Enron publishing internal research about corruption and someone going "well I guess these guys are partisan"
What you would likely have to do to determine this as an outsider is sample a number of people, ask them for opinions on stuff, look at their feeds. See if certain opinions are overrepresented. Look at correlation between opinions they have and opinions they see while you are at it.