Social Ties More Effective Than Shared Politics in Garnering Engagement With Online Corrections 

New research from the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University, in partnership with researchers at MIT Sloan School of Management, reveals that social connections, more so than political alignment, can promote engagement with user-driven corrections of misinformation on social media platforms like X.   

Key findings: 

• Social ties matter: users were more likely to engage with corrections if they came from accounts who followed the corrected user.  

• Political alignment had a smaller effect on engagement: initiating social ties promoted engagement with fact-checks to a greater extent than shared political beliefs between accounts.  

• Social ties seem to be related to a general norm of users being more likely to respond to those who follow them, whether they are offering a correction or otherwise  

Their findings highlight the role of social connections in promoting engagement with online corrections or debunks, at a time when false information continues to spread rapidly on social media.  The research studied two factors that might make people engage with corrections: first, whether they share the same political views as the person correcting them, and second, whether they have any kind of social connection with the person.  

The research found that shared partisanship between accounts had minimal effect on engagement with online corrections, but that social connection (in this case, a follow and three post “likes”) increased engagement with corrections from those who shared the same political beliefs.  Follow-up survey experiments largely replicated these results: people generally feel more obligated to respond to people who follow them – even outside the context of misinformation correction.  

“Social corrections can be a powerful way of debunking falsehoods online, and studies show that these usually reduce belief in false claims,” said Professor Mohsen Mosleh, Associate Professor of Social Data Science at Oxford Internet Institute.  

“Users talking about the correction, even if it starts with disagreement, is better than a correction being ignored. These online discussions could lead to longer-lasting changes in belief, so it’s important for us to know what makes people respond to corrections.” 

The researchers used a combination of field and survey experiments as follows: 

• First, they used bots on Twitter to correct people who shared fact-checked false claims, and changed whether the corrector bot was described as a Democrat or Republican, and whether they had followed the person and liked several of their posts 

• Then, they asked people in an online survey if they would respond to a correction from a fictitious user, again changing the political views and existing social connection of the user. 

• Finally, they conducted another survey to see if people feel more obligated to respond to anyone who has followed them previously more generally, beyond just in response to corrections of misinformation. 

“A challenge for studying social corrections on actual social media platforms is that they are rarely engaged with, with one study finding that 73% of social corrections were ignored on Twitter,” said co-author Cameron Martel, PhD candidate at MIT Sloan School of Management.  “Therefore, if we want to learn about what types of corrections are effective, a crucial first step is encouraging engagement with corrections. Here, we show that reciprocal social connection may be one way to foster such engagement.” 

Read the full paper at PlosOne.

Notes for Editors  

This study focused on the impact of social connections on platforms like X on engagement with online corrections. For more information and briefings, please contact: Sara Spinks / Veena McCoole, Media and Communications Manager.     

M: +44 (0)7551 345493  

E: press@oii.ox.ac.uk  

About the research    

The study used a combination of field and survey experiments to shed new light on social correction by causally investigating what factors promote this crucial first step of initiating preliminary engagement with correction messages. Research included 2,000 users on X, selected to maximise article political balance. 

Funding information  

This research was supported by funding from Google through Google Research Scholar Award, gifts from Google to support other research, and funding via the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. 174530.

About the Oxford Internet Institute (OII)    

The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) is a multidisciplinary research and teaching department of the University of Oxford, dedicated to the social science of the Internet. Drawing from many different disciplines, the OII works to understand how individual and collective behaviour online shapes our social, economic and political world. Since its founding in 2001, research from the OII has had a significant impact on policy debate, formulation and implementation around the globe, as well as a secondary impact on people’s wellbeing, safety and understanding. Drawing on many different disciplines, the OII takes a combined approach to tackling society’s big questions, with the aim of positively shaping the development of the digital world for the public good. 

About the University of Oxford 

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