WhatsApp increases exposure to false rumors but has limited effects on beliefs and polarization: Evidence from a multimedia constrained deactivation experiment

.title[
# <span style="font-size: 80%;"> WhatsApp increases exposure to false rumors but has limited effects on beliefs and polarization: Evidence from a multimedia constrained deactivation experiment </span>
]
.author[
### Tiago Ventura, Rajeshwari Majumdar, Jonathan Nagler, and Joshua A. Tucker <br> <br><span style="font-size: 80%;">Center for Social Media and Politics, NYU</span>
]
.date[
### <span style="font-size: 60%;"> <br> CSMaP Conference<br> 04/15/2023 </span>
]

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<div class="my-footer"><span>Tiago Ventura (CSMaP) &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp CSMaP Conference</span></div>

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## Motivation

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### Research Goal

.content-box-gray[Provide causal estimates for the effects of exposure to misinformation on WhatsApp on political outcomes.]

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## WhatsApp Multimedia Deactivation Field Experiment during the three weeks leading up to the 2022 Presidential Election in Brazil.

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- 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.

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## Overview of the Experiment

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## Treatment Assignment

**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

**Completed**: 773 respondents
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## Compliance Checks

**Compliance Tasks:**

- Screenshots of WhatsApp storage intormation

- Every week + final survey

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

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## Outcomes

**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...).

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## Recruitment and Power Analysis

**Attrition Rate:** 5.3%.

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# Results

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### First-Stage Results

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

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

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### Effects on Belief Accuracy (H2)

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### Belief Accuracy Conditional on WhatsApp usage for Politics

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

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### Polarization Outcomes

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## Discussion

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## Limitations

- Scope conditions: focus on direct effects of WhatsApp.

- Larger effect might exist exactly in hard to reach groups.

- Small effect size vs power

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## Next steps.

### Replication, Replication, Replication

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## Thank you!

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## Examples of Misinformation Outcomes

### False Item:

_Only complete votes are counted by the electoral justice. If the voter only votes for the President, and votes blank for all the other races, the vote is considered a partial vote, and will be annulled_

### True Item:

_After consecutive reductions, the current oil price in Brazil is below the global average value_