Social media regulation, third-person effect, and public views: A comparative study of the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Mexico

Abstract

Given the prevalence of misinformation on social media and accompanying negative externalities, platform regulation has become a highly contested public issue globally. This study investigated (a) what global publics think about platform regulation and (b) the psychological mechanisms underlying such opinions through the lens of the third-person effect. Four national surveys, conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Mexico in April--September 2021, revealed that both presumed media influence on self and others play important but different roles in predicting support for two distinctive forms of platform regulation (i.e. government regulation *of* social media platforms versus content moderation *by* social media platforms). Self-efficacy (self-perceived ability to spot misinformation) and other-efficacy (perception of others' ability to spot misinformation) were identified as two crucial antecedents of third-person perception. There were also nuanced but noteworthy differences in public attitudes toward platform regulations across the four countries studied.