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The Effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 Election: A Deactivation Experiment
Matthew Gentzkow, Landau Professor of Technology and the Economy, Stanford University
Abstract: We study the effect of Facebook and Instagram access on political beliefs, attitudes, and behavior by randomizing a subset of 19,857 Facebook users and 15,585 Instagram users to deactivate their accounts for six weeks before the 2020 U.S. election. We report four key findings. First, both Facebook and Instagram deactivation reduced an index of political participation (driven mainly by reduced participation online). Second, Facebook deactivation had no significant effect on an index of knowledge, but secondary analyses suggest that it reduced knowledge of general news while possibly also decreasing belief in misinformation circulating online. Third, Facebook deactivation may have reduced self-reported net votes for Trump, though this effect does not meet our preregistered significance threshold. Finally, the effects of both Facebook and Instagram deactivation on affective and issue polarization, perceived legitimacy of the election, candidate favorability, and voter turnout were all precisely estimated and close to zero.
Matthew Gentzkow is the Landau Professor of Technology and the Economy at Stanford University. He studies applied microeconomics with a focus on media industries. He received the 2014 John Bates Clark Medal, given by the American Economic Association to the American economist under the age of forty who has made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and a former co-editor of American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. Other awards include the Calvó-Armengol International Prize, the John Von Neumann Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes for Health, and Sloan Foundation, and a Faculty Excellence Award for teaching. He studied at Harvard University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1997, a master’s degree in 2002, and a PhD in 2004.
