The Effect of Misinformation and Partisan Issues on Social Network Pruning
Homophily, or the tendency to associate with like-minded individuals, is reinforced on social media through sorting (self-selection into like-minded communities) and pruning (unfriending those with discordant views). The author presents results from two image-based conjoint experiments measuring how exposure to partisan messages or misinformation influences users’ inclination to unfollow friends. They assess both users’ intent to unfollow those sharing dissonant messages and their perception of being unfollowed.