Angry comments on social media posts might increase your clicks, but they simultaneously decrease the actual donations your cause receives.
Opposing comments and heated debates drive high engagement metrics like reactions and shares for social media content. However, this same conflict causes a significant drop in off-platform positive attitudes and real-world financial support. Many activists assume that a viral post with thousands of comments is a sign of success for their movement. In reality, the friction generated by these comments actively harms the mission by alienating potential donors. Platforms are optimized for a type of activity that is fundamentally at odds with the goals of the people using them.
Social Media Comments
SSRN · 6529698
Comments are a central feature of social media platforms, enabling horizontal communication among diverse users. This paper studies how the presence and stance of comments on social media posts affect subsequent on-platform engagement and off-platform attitudes and behavior on socially important issues. For identification, we develop a novel experimental pipeline that manipulates and randomizes comment visibility and stance using Meta's built-in A/B testing infrastructure. In collaboration with