People think that social media platforms do (but should not) amplify divisive content
Open accessAbstract
Recent studies have documented the type of content that is most likely to spread widely, or go “viral” on social media, yet little is known about people’s perceptions of what goes viral or what should go viral. This is critical to understand because there is widespread debate about how to improve or regulate social media algorithms. We recruited a sample of participants that is nationally representative of the US population (according to age, gender, and race/ethnicity) and surveyed them about their perceptions of social media virality (n = 511). In line with prior research, people believe that divisive content, moral outrage, negative content, high-arousal content, and misinformation are all likely to go viral online. However, they reported that this type of content should not go viral on social media. Instead, people reported that many forms of positive content – such as accurate content, nuanced content, and educational content – are not likely to go viral, even though they think this content should go viral. Importantly, these perceptions were shared among most participants, and were only weakly related to political orientation, social media usage, and demographic variables. In sum, there is broad consensus around the type of content people think social media platforms should and should not amplify, which can help inform solutions for improving social media.
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Preliminary research shows that most U.S. users across political and demographic groups opt for seeing more accurate, nuanced, friendly, positive, and educational content.
“Preliminary research shows that most U.S. users across political and demographic groups opt for seeing more accurate, nuanced, friendly, positive, and educational content (Rathje et al., 2022), although such content currently does not typically go viral by itself.”
From Social Drivers and Algorithmic Mechanisms on Digital Media. (2024) · cites this paper as Rathje et al., 2022
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- Authors
- Rathje, S., Robertson, C., Brady, W. J., & Van Bavel, J. J.
- Affiliations
- New York University (US)
- Publisher
- Center for Open Science
- Published
- 2022-10-11
- OpenAlex
- W4304787539
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 6
- Type
- posted content
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
- Social Sciences › Communication › Media and Digital Communication
- Keywords
- social media virality, moral outrage, misinformation, negative content, social media regulation, algorithmic amplification, political orientation, social media use
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