Does Social Media Make Us Better or Worse Off? Evidence From the 2016 and 2018 Elections.

Does Social Media Make Us Better or Worse Off? Evidence From the 2016 and 2018 Elections.

Hunt Allcott, Luca Braghieri, Sarah Eichmeyer, Matthew Gentzkow, and Chuan Yu

When
Friday December 7, 2018
10:00 – 11:30 AM

Where
City Club of Washington
555 13th Street, NW
Boardroom
Washington, DC 20004

Social media platforms are being accused of being at the root of a host of social ills: fake news, depression, political polarization, addiction, and other maladies. To test these assertions, Allcott and his team has been tracking the diffusion of misinformation on social media. Recently, they ran a large-scale randomized experiment in which we paid Facebook users to deactivate their accounts in the four weeks before the 2018 midterm elections. Professor Allcott will present results from these studies and other related work.

 

Event Contact: Ashley Benjamin, 202-828-4405, [email protected]

The Technology Policy Institute

The Technology Policy Institute is a non-profit research and educational organization that focuses on the economics of innovation, technological change, and related regulation in the United States and around the world. More information is available at www.techpolicyinstitute.org/.

 

+ posts

Share This Article

View More Publications by

Recommended Reads

BLS Data, School Phone Bans, and AI’s Effects on Labor Markets, Research Roundup, May 2026

Is the Kessler Effect Overplayed in the EU Space Act?

Future of News Ratings and Media Trust with NewsGuard CEO Gordon Crovitz on Two Think Minimum

Explore More Topics

Antitrust and Competition 185
Artificial Intelligence 42
Big Data 21
Blockchain 29
Broadband 391
China 2
Content Moderation 15
Economics and Methods 37
Economics of Digitization 15
Evidence-Based Policy 18
Free Speech 21
Infrastructure 1
Innovation 2
Intellectual Property 56
Miscellaneous 335
Privacy and Security 137
Regulation 18
Trade 2
Uncategorized 5

Related Articles

TPI Aspen Forum 2026: Overruling Humphrey’s Executor, The Implications for Antitrust Enforcement

TPI Aspen Forum 2026: What Are Cybersecurity’s Hardest Problems?

TPI Aspen Forum 2026: Does America Lead in Quantum?

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson Sits Down with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan at the 2026 Aspen Forum

BLS Data, School Phone Bans, and AI’s Effects on Labor Markets, Research Roundup, May 2026

Inside the NIH w/ Jay Bhattacharya on Innovation, Replication, and mRNA Policy

Is the Kessler Effect Overplayed in the EU Space Act?

TPI Aspen Forum 2025: Supreme Court and Other Legal Developments

Sign Up for Updates

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.