Social media feedback and extreme opinion expression

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• dc.contributor.author Konovalova, Elizaveta
• dc.contributor.author Le Mens, Gaël
• dc.contributor.author Schöll, Nikolas
• dc.date.accessioned 2025-11-27T17:15:19Z
• dc.date.available 2025-11-27T17:15:19Z
• dc.date.issued 2023
• dc.date.updated 2025-11-27T17:15:19Z
• dc.description.abstract On popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Tiktok, the quantitative feedback received by content producers is asymmetric: counts of positive reactions such as 'likes,' or 'retweets,' are easily observed but similar counts of negative reactions are not directly available. We study how this design feature of social media platforms affects the expression of extreme opinions. Using simulations of a learning model, we compare two feedback environments that differ in terms of the availability of negative reaction counts. We find that expressed opinions are generally more extreme when negative reaction counts are not available than when they are. We rely on analyses of Twitter data and several online experiments to provide empirical support for key model assumptions and test model predictions. Our findings suggest that a simple design change might limit, under certain conditions, the expression of extreme opinions on social media.
• dc.description.sponsorship G. Le Mens benefited from financial support from ERC Consolidator Grant \#772268 from the European Commission, an ICREA Academia grant, the Fundación BBVA Grant G999088Q, and the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), through grant PID2019-105249GB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. G. Le Mens also acknowledge financial support from the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R\&D (Barcelona School of Economics CEX2019-000915-S), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.
• dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
• dc.identifier.citation Konovalova E, Le Mens G, Scholl N. Social media feedback and extreme opinion expression. PLoS ONE. 2023;18(11):e0293805. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293805
• dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293805
• dc.identifier.issn 1932-6203
• dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/72039
• dc.language.iso eng
• dc.publisher PLOS
• dc.relation.ispartof PLoS ONE. 2023;18(11):293805
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/772268
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/PID2019-105249GB-I00
• dc.rights © 2023 Konovalova et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
• dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• dc.rights.uri http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• dc.subject.other Xarxes socials en línia
• dc.subject.other Polarització (Ciències socials)
• dc.title Social media feedback and extreme opinion expression
• dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
• dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion