Published:
30 July 2024
This is a discussion paper by Ofcom’s Behavioural Insight Hub that presents research aimed at understanding the user relationships with social media T&Cs, specifically Community Guidelines. We used an online randomised control trial to test the effectiveness of different behavioural techniques in increasing users’ engagement with Community Guidelines. We also investigated the impact of this engagement on subsequent behaviour and interactions with content.
We used a mock-up of a typical social media platform and altered how (e.g. by changes to the user interface) and when (e.g. at sign-up or whilst scrolling) the link to Community Guidelines was presented to participants.
We found:
- Of the interventions we tested, only a prompt whilst participants were scrolling the feed was effective at encouraging users to click to read the Community Guidelines. A prompt increased engagement with the Community Guidelines to between 7% and 9%,compared to 3% in the control condition.
- The interventions did not, however, appear to influence user reporting or reposting of violative content (i.e., content that violated the Community Guidelines). Across all study groups, including the control, we did not find any significant differences in user reporting or reposting of violative content.
- Prompts increased recall of the platform rules, but not comprehension. Overall, just over 60% of participants exposed to a prompt correctly recalled that the social media platform had rules and guidelines compared to, approximately, 45% in all the other groups. However, being able to remember that there are rules did not necessarily translate into better understanding of the rules. Across all groups, there already appeared to be a relatively high level of appreciation of platform rules. Participants across all trial arms correctly identified around two thirds of actions that would be allowed or disallowed on the platform.