Summary
Right-wing messaging portraying Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen as a Democratic operative reduced Republican support for stricter Facebook regulation. However, pro-regulation messages anchored in conservative values or featuring a Republican Senator as messenger effectively reversed this decline.
Background
Right-wing commentators have circulated conspiracy theories attacking Haugen's credibility. Her congressional testimony revealed that Facebook knew their products harmed children and withheld this information from Congress. Both Democratic and Republican officials responded positively to her evidence and indicated openness to government intervention.
The research pursued three objectives: understanding current public opinions about Facebook and appropriate regulation; measuring the impact of right-wing conspiracy messaging on regulatory support; and testing counter-messages designed to neutralize that messaging.
Audience Understanding Survey
On November 16, researchers surveyed 782 people with this question: "Which of the following is closest to your view, even if none is exactly right?"
The options presented were:
- Facebook is harmful and should face much heavier regulation, including breakup
- Facebook is harmful and should face heavier regulation, but shouldn't be broken up
- Facebook is harmful but shouldn't face heavier regulation
- Facebook is not harmful to American society
- Don't know
Approximately 44% favored increased government regulation, while 41% opposed it. Notably, there was essentially no partisan polarization on this question, contrasting with every other issue tested that fall.
Open-ended responses revealed diverse concerns: personal data selling, mental health harms, censorship of both conservatives and liberals. Opposition to regulation often centered on limiting government involvement to punishable crimes.
Even among those advocating for "much heavier government regulation," skepticism of government appeared, though some acknowledged Facebook's severity overcome their doubts.
Rapid Message Test
Researchers first exposed respondents to an opposition message from commentator Ben Shapiro, characterizing Haugen as "a partisan activist" with "a record of donations to far-left Democrats."
Four pro-regulation messages were then drafted, varying values and messengers:
- Rule of Law: Focused on Facebook's legal violations and anti-competitive practices
- Protect Our Children: Featured a concerned parent describing Instagram's mental health effects on teenage girls
- Republican Senator: Quoted Senator Roger Wicker describing harms to children and Facebook's concealment
- Bipartisan: Combined Republican and Democratic elected officials discussing corporate irresponsibility toward youth
The test divided respondents into six groups: placebo only; Shapiro message plus one of four pro-regulation messages; and Shapiro message plus placebo.
Results
The Shapiro message reduced regulatory support by 10 percentage points compared to pure placebo. However, pro-regulation messages effectively reversed this effect. Respondents seeing Shapiro's message followed by either the "Rule of Law" or "Bipartisan" messages ended up slightly more supportive of regulation than placebo-only respondents.
Partisan differences emerged dramatically: the anti-regulation message had negligible impact on Biden voters but reduced support among Trump voters by 20 percentage points.
Among Trump voters specifically, messages employing conservative values or Republican messengers proved effective. The "Rule of Law" message and "Republican Senator" message completely eliminated the anti-regulation message's dampening effect, potentially even slightly increasing regulatory support.
The analysis concludes that while the conspiracy-minded message demonstrated persuasive power among Republicans, its effects proved impermanent,erasable through well-crafted pro-regulation messages, particularly those tailored to Republicans through messenger selection or values alignment.