Job Market Paper

Curating Political Information: Who Shares What with Whom?

Draft

Why do people supply information slanted toward their own positions? In four experiments, I investigate whether this slant reflects deliberate selection, which motives drive it, and how it affects those receiving information. People curate the truth, choosing which facts to pass on and to whom. Even with the usual explanations ruled out, they value sharing facts that support their own political position beyond anything they expect those facts to do to others. They also want to correct and persuade others. However, they share less with those who hold different views on policy, even though their own expectations give them strategic reason to share more with them. When receivers make real political donations, people select more on expected persuasion. Professional journalists select in a similar way, even without market or newsroom pressures. Individuals from whom facts are withheld end up with less accurate beliefs and barely notice the selection. Selection among true information thus distorts what people believe without any falsehood, at a margin current policies such as fact-checking do not target.