Misinformation Exposure Beyond Traditional Feeds: Evidence from a WhatsApp Deactivation Experiment in Brazil

.title[
# <span style="font-size: 70%;"> Misinformation Exposure Beyond Traditional Feeds: Evidence from a WhatsApp Deactivation Experiment in Brazil </span>
]
.author[
### Tiago Ventura, Rajeshwari Majumdar, Jonathan Nagler, and Joshua A. Tucker <br> <br><span style="font-size: 80%;">Georgetown University & Center for Social Media and Politics, NYU</span>
]
.date[
### <span style="font-size: 80%;"> <br> McCourt Faculty Seminar <br> 12/04/2023 </span>
]

---

<div class="my-footer"><span>Tiago Ventura (Georgetown University) &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp  McCourt School  Faculty Seminar</span></div>

---
class:middle
### From Liberation to Turmoil: The Misinformation Turn

[From Liberation to Turmoil, Tucker et. al., 2019](https://muse.jhu.edu/article/671987)
]
---
class: middle

### Insights

---
class:middle 
### .center[1% of users represented 80% of exposure to Fake News on Twitter in 20216]

.center[
<img src="gringer.png" width="90%" />
]
.center[[Grinberg et al., 2019](https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.aau2706)]

---
class: middle

### Insights

---
### .center[Exposure to IRA Russian Misinformation on Twitter doesn’t lead to changes in attitudes]

---
### Insights

---
class:middle

---
class:middle

## WhatsApp 101

.panelset.sideways[

#### WhatsApp is a worldwide popular end-to-end encrypted messaging app allowing both .red[direct] and .red[group-based] communications with close to 2 billion around the world

]

- .red[66% of the Brazilian eligible voters] has a social media account, and .red[65% have an WhatsApp account] ([Datafolha 2018](http://media.folha.uol.com.br/datafolha/2018/10/27/44cc2204230d2fd45e18b039ee8c07a6.pdf)) – 150 million people in 2022.

- Most used app for all purposes: .red[talk to family & friends, do business & pay bills, consume news, talk politics, among others] ([Reuters Institute, 2021](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2021)).

- Used by .red[48% of population to read news], despite having no “news feed” ([Reuters Institute, 2021](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2021))

- Across the world, .red[Brazilians are the most concerned about misinformation]. And among the most active social media users

- And .red[WhatsApp is the main social media application] where users report to see more misinformation. 
]
.panel[.panel-name[Effects on Politics]

Several claims about the role of WhatsApp on offline attitudes and behaviors:

- Powerful propaganda and organizational tool for political parties .midgrey[(Chauchard and Garimella, 2022; Gil de Zúñiga et al. 2021)]
- Misinformation led episodes of offline violence against minority groups .midgrey[(Saha et al., 2021; Banaji et al., 2019)] 
- Voting behavior .midgrey[(Tardáguila et al., 2018; Mello, 2020)]

]
]

---

.content-box-gray[Identify the causal effects of **.red[WhatsApp usage]** on **.red[exposure to online rumors]** and its downstream effects on **.red[belief accuracy]** and **.red[political attitudes]**]

---
class: middle, inverse, center

# WhatsApp Multimedia Constrained Deactivation

---
class: middle

## Deactivation Studies

.pull-left[
.center[Facebook Deactivation in the US [(Alcott et al., 2020)](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20190658)]
]

.center[Facebook Deactivation in Bosnia and Herzegovina [(Asimovic et. al, 2022)](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2022819118)]
]
f

---
class: middle

### Our Experiment

- Disable their automatic download of media on WhatsApp.
- Do not purposefully click and watch any media on WhatsApp.

- **Start:** Three weeks before general election in Brazil.
- **End:** three days after the voting day.

---
class:center, middle, inverse

# Overview of the Experiment

---
class:middle

---
class:middle

### Overview of the Experiment

.panelset.sideways[

**Method:** Facebook Ads targeting adults Brazil

**Started Recruitment:** September 8th

**Number of respondents:** 1,947

**Screening variables:**

+ Willingness to join: .red[1,8861 participants]
  
  + More 5min WhatsApp daily

+ Only WhatsApp mobile
  
  + More than 2 min to complete recruitment + other quality controls

]

**Start**: September 15.

**Treatment**:

- Turn off the automatic download.
- Three .red[weeks] without consuming any multimedia.
  
**Control**: Three .red[days] without consuming any multimedia.

**Invited**: 1,135 respondents

**Enrolled**: 773 respondents

]

]

---
.panel[.panel-name[Intervention]

]

**Compliance Tasks:**

- Screenshots of WhatsApp storage intormation

- Every week + final survey

- After the  first compliance check, the control group was re-activated

]

**Self-Reported Exposure and Accuracy Judgment**

- False Rumors published on fact-checking webpages during the month of the experiment + True News stories headlines from mainstream media.

**Polarization**

- Affective polarization (Feeling Thermometer).
  - Social Polarization (Willingness to engage with outgroup voter).
  - Issue Polarization (Abortion, gun control, etc..).
  - Perceptions about ideological polarization ('Where do I observe the two main candidates?').

**Subjective Well-being**

- How did you feel for the past three weeks? (Happy, Anxious, etc...).

]

## Recruitment and Power Analysis

**Attrition Rate:** 5.3%.

]

]
]

]

---
class:middle

## Hypotheses

---
class: center, middle, inverse

# Results

---

### First-Stage Results

---
### Effects on Exposure to Misinformation Rumors (H1)

---
### Reduction in exposure is large for false news (H1)

---
### Effects on Belief Accuracy (H2)

---
### Effects on Polarization & Subjective Well-Being (H3 & H4)

---
class: middle, inverse, center

## Additional Analyses  (Non Pre-Registered)

---
### Exposure and Partisanship

---
### Belief Accuracy Conditional on WhatsApp usage for Politics

---
### Polarization Outcomes

---

## Discussion

---
class: middle

### Limitations

---
class: middle, inverse, center

# Understanding Causal Effects of Social Media Usage: Multi-country Designs

---
class: middle

## Multi-Country WhatsApp Deactivation

- Multi-Country Deactivation: Mexico, South Africa and India. (TPP Grant)

- Contextual Diversity

- New treatment arm: overall reduction on WhatsApp usage.

- Developing a data donation pipeline for WhatsApp group data

--
---
## Global Social Media Usage Reduction

- Large-Scale Collaborative Project on Experimentally Reducing Social Media Usage

- Platforms: Five major algorithmic-based platforms (No WhatsApp)

- Open Collaboration: 76 Countries, more than 700 (potential) collaborators signed up
  
- Outcomes: News Knowledge, Affective Polarization and Subjective Well-Being
   
- Truly global, allowing for comparative perspective, contextual variation and heteregenous effects. 
   
]

.pull-right[
<br>
<br>
.center[
<img src="global.png" width="100%" />
]
]
---
class:middle, center, inverse

# Thank you!

---