Research: political hashtags make online news discussions more extreme

Whether you’re a conservative or a liberal, you have most likely come across a political hashtag in an article, a tweet or a personal story shared on Facebook. A hashtag is a functional tag widely used in search engines and social networking services that allow people to search for content that falls under the word or phrase, followed by the # sign. First popularized by Twitter in 2009, the use of hashtags has become widespread. Nearly anything political with the intent of attracting a wi