Ershov, Daniel;
Morales, Juan S;
(2024)
Sharing News Left and Right: Frictions and Misinformation on Twitter.
The Economic Journal
10.1093/ej/ueae027.
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Abstract
On October 20, 2020, prior to the US presidential election, Twitter modified its user interface for sharing social media posts. In an effort to reduce the spread of misinformation on the platform, the new interface nudged users to be thoughtful about the content they were sharing. Using data on over 160,000 tweets by US news media outlets we show that this policy significantly reduced news sharing, but that the reductions varied heterogeneously by political slant: sharing of content fell significantly more for left-wing outlets relative to right-wing outlets. Examining Twitter activity data for news-sharing users, we find that conservatives were less responsive to Twitter’s intervention. Lastly, using web traffic data, we document that the policy significantly reduced visits to news media outlets’ websites.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Sharing News Left and Right: Frictions and Misinformation on Twitter |
| DOI: | 10.1093/ej/ueae027 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueae027 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > UCL School of Management |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10190653 |
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