TY - JOUR
T1 - The effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 election
T2 - A deactivation experiment
AU - Allcott, Hunt
AU - Gentzkow, Matthew
AU - Mason, Winter
AU - Wilkins, Arjun
AU - Barberá, Pablo
AU - Brown, Taylor
AU - Cisneros, Juan Carlos
AU - Crespo-Tenorio, Adriana
AU - Dimmery, Drew
AU - Freelon, Deen
AU - González-Bailón, Sandra
AU - Guess, Andrew M.
AU - Kim, Young Mie
AU - Lazer, David
AU - Malhotra, Neil
AU - Moehler, Devra
AU - Nair-Desai, Sameer
AU - El Barj, Houda Nait
AU - Nyhan, Brendan
AU - de Queiroz, Ana Carolina Paixao
AU - Pan, Jennifer
AU - Settle, Jaime
AU - Thorson, Emily
AU - Tromble, Rebekah
AU - Rivera, Carlos Velasco
AU - Wittenbrink, Benjamin
AU - Wojcieszak, Magdalena
AU - Zahedian, Saam
AU - Franco, Annie
AU - de Jonge, Chad Kiewiet
AU - Stroud, Natalie Jomini
AU - Tucker, Joshua A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - We study the effect of Facebook and Instagram access on political beliefs, attitudes, and behavior by randomizing a subset of 19,857 Facebook users and 15,585 Instagram users to deactivate their accounts for 6 wk before the 2020 U.S. election. We report four key findings. First, both Facebook and Instagram deactivation reduced an index of political participation (driven mainly by reduced participation online). Second, Facebook deactivation had no significant effect on an index of knowledge, but secondary analyses suggest that it reduced knowledge of general news while possibly also decreasing belief in misinformation circulating online. Third, Facebook deactivation may have reduced self-reported net votes for Trump, though this effect does not meet our preregistered significance threshold. Finally, the effects of both Facebook and Instagram deactivation on affective and issue polarization, perceived legitimacy of the election, candidate favorability, and voter turnout were all precisely estimated and close to zero.
AB - We study the effect of Facebook and Instagram access on political beliefs, attitudes, and behavior by randomizing a subset of 19,857 Facebook users and 15,585 Instagram users to deactivate their accounts for 6 wk before the 2020 U.S. election. We report four key findings. First, both Facebook and Instagram deactivation reduced an index of political participation (driven mainly by reduced participation online). Second, Facebook deactivation had no significant effect on an index of knowledge, but secondary analyses suggest that it reduced knowledge of general news while possibly also decreasing belief in misinformation circulating online. Third, Facebook deactivation may have reduced self-reported net votes for Trump, though this effect does not meet our preregistered significance threshold. Finally, the effects of both Facebook and Instagram deactivation on affective and issue polarization, perceived legitimacy of the election, candidate favorability, and voter turnout were all precisely estimated and close to zero.
KW - Facebook
KW - Instagram
KW - election
KW - polarization
KW - social media
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85192923328&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85192923328&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2321584121
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2321584121
M3 - Article
C2 - 38739793
AN - SCOPUS:85192923328
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 121
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 21
M1 - e2321584121
ER -