Professor Dante Donati: Trolls or Allies? The Impact of Comments on Social Media Campaigns
We conduct a large Facebook experiment to estimate the causal impact of the comment section on social media posts promoting racial justice. First, we collect and analyze comments to understand how political ideology influences engagement with posts. Then, we evaluate how exposure to different comment narratives affects subsequent engagement (comments, views), intentions (clicks), and off-platform behaviors (donations, petitions). Our findings provide valuable insights for organizations and companies interested in leveraging User-Generated-Content moderation tools to ensure brand safety and optimize social media marketing campaigns.
Professor Rebecca Ponce de Leon