When Twitter fact-checks Trump’s tweets, it polarizes Americans even more, our research finds

Government

11/25/2020

According to research, fact-checking President Trump backfires, write , the John L. Wetherill Professor of government, and , the Clinton Rossiter Professor in American Institutions, in (with Dino Christenson of Boston University).

“For months, Twitter has been identifying and contextualizing Trump’s misleading tweets, aiming to stop misinformation from spreading on its platform,” . “Such warnings may have been a public relations victory for Twitter and for the other social media companies that took similar steps in 2020, at least among some audiences. But did these efforts affect public opinion about the issue itself?”