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Misinformation is a key world risk, however Democrats and Republicans disagree about methods to handle the issue. Particularly, Democrats and Republicans diverge sharply on eradicating misinformation from social media.
Solely three weeks after the Biden administration introduced the Disinformation Governance Board in April 2022, the trouble to develop finest practices for countering disinformation was halted due to Republican considerations about its mission. Why do Democrats and Republicans have such completely different attitudes about content material moderation?
My colleagues Jennifer Pan and Margaret E. Roberts and I discovered in a examine revealed within the journal Science Advances that Democrats and Republicans not solely disagree about what’s true or false, additionally they differ of their internalized preferences for content material moderation. Internalized preferences could also be associated to folks’s ethical values, identities or different psychological components, or folks internalizing the preferences of celebration elites.
And although persons are typically strategic about wanting misinformation that counters their political beliefs eliminated, internalized preferences are a a lot bigger issue within the differing attitudes towards content material moderation.
Internalized preferences or partisan bias?
In our examine, we discovered that Democrats are about twice as possible as Republicans to wish to take away misinformation, whereas Republicans are about twice as possible as Democrats to think about removing of misinformation as censorship. Democrats’ attitudes would possibly rely considerably on whether or not the content material aligns with their very own political beliefs, however this appears to be due, a minimum of partly, to completely different perceptions of accuracy.
Earlier analysis confirmed that Democrats and Republicans have completely different views about content material moderation of misinformation. Some of the distinguished explanations is the “reality hole”: the distinction in what Democrats and Republicans imagine is true or false. For instance, a examine discovered that each Democrats and Republicans had been extra prone to imagine information headlines that had been aligned with their very own political beliefs.
However it’s unlikely that the actual fact hole alone can clarify the large variations in content material moderation attitudes. That’s why we got down to examine two different components that may lead Democrats and Republicans to have completely different attitudes: desire hole and celebration promotion. A desire hole is a distinction in internalized preferences about whether or not, and what, content material ought to be eliminated. Occasion promotion is an individual making content material moderation selections primarily based on whether or not the content material aligns with their partisan views.
We requested 1,120 U.S. survey respondents who recognized as both Democrat or Republican about their opinions on a set of political headlines that we recognized as misinformation primarily based on a bipartisan reality examine. Every respondent noticed one headline that was aligned with their very own political beliefs and one headline that was misaligned. After every headline, the respondent answered whether or not they would need the social media firm to take away the headline, whether or not they would take into account it censorship if the social media platform eliminated the headline, whether or not they would report the headline as dangerous, and the way correct the headline was.
Deep-seated variations
After we in contrast how Democrats and Republicans would take care of headlines general, we discovered sturdy proof for a desire hole. Total, 69% of Democrats mentioned misinformation headlines in our examine ought to be eliminated, however solely 34% of Republicans mentioned the identical; 49% of Democrats thought-about the misinformation headlines dangerous, however solely 27% of Republicans mentioned the identical; and 65% of Republicans thought-about headline removing to be censorship, however solely 29% of Democrats mentioned the identical.
Even in instances the place Democrats and Republicans agreed that the identical headlines had been inaccurate, Democrats had been practically twice as possible as Republicans to wish to take away the content material, whereas Republicans had been practically twice as possible as Democrats to think about removing censorship.
We didn’t check explicitly why Democrats and Republicans have such completely different internalized preferences, however there are a minimum of two potential causes. First, Democrats and Republicans would possibly differ in components like their ethical values or identities. Second, Democrats and Republicans would possibly internalize what the elites of their events sign. For instance, Republican elites have not too long ago framed content material moderation as a free speech and censorship difficulty. Republicans would possibly use these elites’ preferences to tell their very own.
After we zoomed in on headlines which can be both aligned or misaligned for Democrats, we discovered a celebration promotion impact: Democrats had been much less favorable to content material moderation when misinformation aligned with their very own views. Democrats had been 11% much less prone to need the social media firm to take away headlines that aligned with their very own political beliefs. They had been 13% much less prone to report headlines that aligned with their very own views as dangerous. We didn’t discover a comparable impact for Republicans.
Our examine reveals that celebration promotion could also be partly resulting from completely different perceptions of accuracy of the headlines. After we regarded solely at Democrats who agreed with our assertion that the headlines had been false, the celebration promotion impact was decreased to 7%.
Implications for social media platforms
We discover it encouraging that the impact of celebration promotion is far smaller than the impact of internalized preferences, particularly when accounting for accuracy perceptions. Nevertheless, given the large partisan variations in content material moderation preferences, we imagine that social media corporations ought to look past the actual fact hole when designing content material moderation insurance policies that intention for bipartisan help.
Future analysis may discover whether or not getting Democrats and Republicans to agree on moderation processes – quite than moderation of particular person items of content material – may cut back disagreement. Additionally, different forms of content material moderation resembling downweighting, which entails platforms decreasing the virality of sure content material, would possibly show to be much less contentious. Lastly, if the desire hole – the variations in deep-seated preferences between Democrats and Republicans – is rooted in worth variations, platforms may attempt to use completely different ethical framings to attraction to folks on either side of the partisan divide.
For now, Democrats and Republicans are prone to proceed to disagree over whether or not eradicating misinformation from social media improves public discourse or quantities to censorship.
Ruth Elisabeth Appel has been supported by an SAP Stanford Graduate Fellowship in Science and Engineering, a Stanford Middle on Philanthropy and Civil Society PhD Analysis Fellowship and a Stanford Impression Labs Summer season Collaborative Analysis Fellowship. She has interned at Google in 2020 and attended an occasion the place meals was paid for by Meta.