Social media regulation, third-person effect, and public views: A comparative study of the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Mexico

Abstract

Given the prevalence of misinformation on social media and accompanying negative externalities, platform regulation has become a highly contested public issue globally. This study investigated (a) what global publics think about platform regulation and (b) the psychological mechanisms underlying such opinions through the lens of the third-person effect. Four national surveys, conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Mexico in April–September 2021, revealed that both presumed media influence on self and others play important but different roles in predicting support for two distinctive forms of platform regulation (i.e. government regulation of social media platforms versus content moderation by social media platforms). Self-efficacy (self-perceived ability to spot misinformation) and other-efficacy (perception of others’ ability to spot misinformation) were identified as two crucial antecedents of third-person perception. There were also nuanced but noteworthy differences in public attitudes toward platform regulations across the four countries studied.