最近的证据表明,像Twitter(现在的X)这样的社交媒体平台奖励政治上分裂的内容,尽管大多数人不赞成党际冲突和消极情绪。我们记录了这种差异,并提供了第一个证据来解释它,使用美国参议员和美国成年人的推文回复他们。研究1a和1b检查了6135条这样的推文,发现与与对手进行建设性接触的推文相比,驳回推文获得的喜欢和转发更多。相比之下,研究2a和2b(N=856;1,968个观察结果)表明,更广泛的公众,如果有的话,更喜欢政客\'引人入胜的推文。研究3(N=323;4,571个观察结果)和4(N=261;2,610个观察结果)支持对这种脱节的两种不同解释。首先,经常对政客推文做出反应的用户是有影响力但没有代表性的少数群体,奖励解雇的帖子,因为,不像大多数人,他们更喜欢他们。第二,沉默的大多数人承认他们也会更多地奖励解雇职位,尽管不赞成他们。这些发现有助于解释为什么流行的在线内容有时会扭曲真正的公众舆论。
Recent evidence has shown that social-media platforms like Twitter (now X) reward politically divisive content, even though most people disapprove of interparty conflict and negativity. We document this discrepancy and provide the first evidence explaining it, using tweets by U.S. Senators and American adults\' responses to them. Studies 1a and 1b examined 6,135 such tweets, finding that dismissing tweets received more Likes and Retweets than tweets that engaged constructively with opponents. In contrast, Studies 2a and 2b (N = 856; 1,968 observations) revealed that the broader public, if anything, prefers politicians\' engaging tweets. Studies 3 (N = 323; 4,571 observations) and 4 (N = 261; 2,610 observations) supported two distinct explanations for this disconnect. First, users who frequently react to politicians\' tweets are an influential yet unrepresentative minority, rewarding dismissing posts because, unlike most people, they prefer them. Second, the silent majority admit that they too would reward dismissing posts more, despite disapproving of them. These findings help explain why popular online content sometimes distorts true public opinion.