Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41770796›Full record

ArticlePloS one2026

The Platform Messaging Effect (PME): A quantification of how go-vote reminders on social media platforms can influence voting intentions.

Robert Epstein, Amanda Newland, Li Yu Tang, Alyssa Edmison

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PloS one, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Robert EpsteinAmerican Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, Vista, United States of America.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7484-6282
Amanda NewlandAmerican Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, Vista, United States of America.
Li Yu TangAmerican Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, Vista, United States of America.
Alyssa EdmisonAmerican Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, Vista, United States of America.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Over the past decade, researchers have identified and quantified about a dozen new forms of influence made possible by the internet. Although experts have expressed concern about how users may be harmed by social media content, few studies have sought to quantify the extent to which go-vote reminders on such platforms can impact voting. In the present study, we sent go-vote reminders to US voters on a simulation of Facebook and found (a) that interspersing vote reminders in the message feed significantly increased the magnitude of voting intentions (by over 40% under certain conditions) and (b) that vote reminders also had a significant impact on how people might vote. Because reminders of this sort are ephemeral, social media platforms that send vote reminders to users in a partisan fashion might be able to shift the outcomes of close elections without people's knowledge.

Indexed as

IntentionPoliticsReminder SystemsSocial MediaVotingDigital MediaHumansInternetMedia Exposure

Identifiers

PMID41770796
PMCPMC12952607

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.