Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42525749›Full record

ArticleScience advances2026

Untrustworthy sources on Facebook and Instagram in 2020: Concentrated exposure but no attitudinal effects.

Olivier Bergeron-Boutin, Brendan Nyhan, Jaime Settle, Emily Thorson, Magdalena Wojcieszak, Taylor Brown, Adriana Crespo-Tenorio, Carlos Velasco Rivera, Hunt Allcott, Pablo Barberá and 20 more

Abstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Science advances, 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

30 authors.

Olivier Bergeron-BoutinUniversity of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-7597-9650
Brendan NyhanDepartment of Government, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-7497-1799
Jaime SettleDepartment of Government, William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-2190-9291
Emily ThorsonDepartment of Political Science, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-6514-801X
Magdalena WojcieszakDepartment of Communication, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-5456-4483
Taylor BrownMeta (current or former employee), Menlo Park, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-5284-338X
Adriana Crespo-TenorioMeta (current or former employee), Menlo Park, CA, USA.
Carlos Velasco RiveraMeta (current or former employee), Menlo Park, CA, USA.
Hunt AllcottStanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Pablo BarberáMeta (current or former employee), Menlo Park, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-9063-4829
Drew DimmeryMeta (current or former employee), Menlo Park, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-9602-6325
Deen FreelonAnnenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-5055-0316
Matthew GentzkowStanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-7758-8656
Sandra González-BailónAnnenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-8372-798X
Andrew M GuessDepartment of Politics and School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-2974-7848
Edward KennedyDepartment of Statistics and Data Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-0227-158X
Young Mie KimSchool of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-6068-9274
David LazerNULab of Texts, Maps, and Networks, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-7991-9110
Neil MalhotraGraduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-4477-6049
Devra MoehlerMeta (current or former employee), Menlo Park, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-3631-8630
Jennifer PanDepartment of Communication, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-4818-0122
Daniel Robert ThomasMeta (current or former employee), Menlo Park, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-6284-4768
Rebekah TrombleDepartment of Political Science and Khoury College of Computer Science, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-3875-2729
Arjun WilkinsMeta (current or former employee), Menlo Park, CA, USA.
Beixian XiongMeta (current or former employee), Menlo Park, CA, USA.
Chad Kiewiet de JongeMeta (current or former employee), Menlo Park, CA, USA.
Annie FrancoMeta (current or former employee), Menlo Park, CA, USA.
Winter MasonMeta (current or former employee), Menlo Park, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-1269-8947
Natalie Jomini StroudMoody College of Communication and Center for Media Engagement, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-3528-9986
Joshua A TuckerWilf Family Department of Politics and Center for Social Media and Politics, New York University, New York, NY, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-1321-8650

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Despite concern about exposure to content from untrustworthy sources on social media, little is known about the frequency or effects of exposure to their content. We examine 2020 data from all active US adults on Facebook and Instagram to measure exposure to content from Pages, groups, and web domains on Facebook and public accounts on Instagram that repeatedly publish misinformation. We find that average users saw relatively little content in their feeds from these untrustworthy sources; exposure was highly concentrated. A multimonth field experiment during the 2020 election among consenting users reduced feed-based exposure to content from untrustworthy sources by approximately 70% on both platforms but had no measurable effects on numerous preregistered outcomes, even among participants with high pretreatment exposure. Our results demonstrate that a feasible platform intervention can successfully reduce exposure to content from untrustworthy sources but suggest that these changes are unlikely to have immediate effects on attitudes and beliefs.

Indexed as

AttitudeSocial MediaCommunicationHumansMedia Exposure

Identifiers

PMID42525749
PMCPMC13418747

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC
Read underepoch 390

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.