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Category: Project

Description: There have been some recent developments in social media companies to embrace blockchain technology, and potentially cryptocurrency, in their platforms. For example, Reddit announced its plan to Karma points as a NFT-backed digital goods and make the platform more decentralized. While the idea of decentralized social media (DeSo) is not new, the possibility of major social media platforms embracing it is both promising and harmful. It can be beneficial for better content moderation and data ownership regulations, and also a potential new incentive to post objectionable content such as misinformation and polarizing content. Here, we attempt to address the latter. We carry out two online survey experiments to answer 1) whether social media users fully understand the financial promises of a DeSo platform, and 2) whether the financial incentives of a DeSo increases the likelihood of posting fake or polarizing news headlines.