The strategic presentation of user comments affects how political messages are evaluated on social media sites: Evidence for robust effects across party lines

This online experiment examines how partisan cues interact with features of newer media to affect how people evaluate political messages online. Specifically, we examine the degree to which obscuring the political affiliations of different online sources can influence how viewers evaluate the political messages they share through social media. We also examine how viewers evaluate political organizations that appear to strategically suppress comments that accompany their political posts. The results indicate that viewers were more trusting and more likely to endorse political messages, the less they perceived that political organizations were strategically controlling comments and the less they believed that the commenters were affiliated with a political organization; notably, these effects were robust across the political spectrum. Theoretical implications for warranting theory and practical implications for evaluating messages shared online are discussed. •Policy organizations that delete social media comments were less trusted and endorsed.•Commenters affiliated with the policy organization were less trusted and endorsed.•Viewers' political ideology did not influence evaluations of the policy organization.