So someone named Amy Sippet who works at a charity called Full Fact decided it's mostly a myth, not after conducting studies or independent research but after reading just 7 previous studies on the backfire effect and noting that some studies didn't seem to her to support it and that most of the studies she read were conducted in the US. The article links to and quotes from her twitter account.
This major breakthrough in the social sciences shares space in the very same article with an observation about how you can use Instagram to find "the internet’s darkest corners.” and some random stuff about Apple.
Maybe it's just the backfire effect here, but I'm not really convinced.
Limiting a literature review to 7 studies based on frequency of citation is pretty understandable, especially for a relatively young research topic. Of the 2 studies which showed a significant backfire effect, the findings of the first were considered "overstated and oversold" by its own authors and the second only found evidence of the effect in one of four situations. The second was also partially replicated in a later study which found no evidence of the backfire effect.
That being said, the author of the review probably would not want you to be convinced by a single pop-sci piece covering her work. This "major breakthrough," as you describe it, does not in fact share space with any tweets or mentions of Instagram, but can be found here: https://fullfact.org/media/uploads/backfire_report_fullfact....
This major breakthrough in the social sciences shares space in the very same article with an observation about how you can use Instagram to find "the internet’s darkest corners.” and some random stuff about Apple.
Maybe it's just the backfire effect here, but I'm not really convinced.