Sharing News Left and Right: Frictions and Misinformation on Twitter
The Economic Journal, 134(662), 2391-2417.
Abstract
On October 20, 2020, prior to the U.S. presidential election, Twitter changed its sharing interface by adding friction before users could retweet links they had not opened. Using tweets from U.S. news media outlets, we show that the intervention reduced news sharing and that reductions were larger for left-wing outlets than for right-wing outlets. Examining Twitter activity data for news-sharing users, we find that conservatives were less responsive to Twitter's intervention. Using web traffic data, we also document that the policy significantly reduced visits to news media outlets' websites.
Main Finding
The sharing friction reduced news sharing, but the reduction was asymmetric: content from left-wing outlets fell more than content from right-wing outlets, and conservative users were less responsive.
Policy Relevance
Small platform-design frictions can change political news diffusion and misinformation exposure in ways that vary across ideological groups.
See Also
- [Policy]Sharing News Left and Right
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