-->PONE-D-25-67892-->-->Ad-Based Social Media Interventions Increase Belief Accuracy and Generate Pro-Social Opinions Among Non-News Readers-->-->PLOS One

Dear Dr. WOJCIESZAK,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. -->--> -->-->==============================-->-->I have now received two reviews. Both reviewers were very positive about the paper’s overall quality, and I share their view that this is an ambitious, carefully executed, and potentially highly useful contribution. At the same time, some of the reviewers and I converged on a similar point: the main remaining issues concern framing, positioning, and interpretive precision, rather than the underlying analyses. In other words, the reviewers found the empirical core of the paper strong, but they felt the manuscript would benefit from a clearer articulation of exactly what its contribution is.

Most importantly, the reviewers encourage you to front-load the paper’s central contribution more explicitly. As they read it, the manuscript’s main value is not simply to show that short factual ads can persuade people online, since persuasive effects of media interventions are already well established. Rather, the more distinctive contribution is that the paper reframes a problem often discussed as “misinformation” into one of informational absence among news non-users, and then demonstrates that this reframing can be operationalized at scale through existing advertising infrastructure. Making this point more clearly in the introduction and discussion would help align expectations with what the study actually shows and improve the paper’s visibility.

Relatedly, one reviewer asks that this reframing be situated more explicitly within the relevant literature. The manuscript already cites work on news avoidance, limited exposure to verified information, and interventions aimed at misinformation, but the reviewers felt this could be woven into a more coherent intellectual lineage. This would clarify that the paper is not claiming to invent the broader insight from scratch, but rather to extend and empirically implement it in a novel and scalable way.

I would also encourage somewhat more explicit discussion of the paper’s boundary conditions. In particular, because the intervention relies on advertising infrastructure that is also available to actors with competing or adversarial agendas, it would strengthen the manuscript to briefly acknowledge that the present studies occur in relatively non-confrontational informational environments. A short discussion of how effectiveness may differ in more competitive or adversarial advertising ecologies would improve the paper’s policy relevance without requiring new analyses.

A further set of revisions concerns interpretive precision around the outcomes. One reviewer recommends being more careful with the term “belief accuracy,” noting that the current measures may capture short-term information uptake, accessibility, or response tendencies shortly after exposure rather than deeper or more durable belief revision. Along similar lines, it would help to maintain sharper distinctions among beliefs, attitudes, and behavioural intentions, especially where some items may be politically or normatively loaded, and to avoid language that implies demonstrated behavioural change when only intentions were measured.

There are also a few smaller points worth addressing. The reviewers suggest that the limitations section would be strengthened by integrating these interpretive caveats more directly. It may also be useful to clarify that the longer-term persistence evidence is shown most clearly for the climate change outcomes, and to briefly note that effects may differ among audiences with stronger prior attitudes or greater issue engagement.

Overall, however, the tenor of the reviews is highly encouraging. Both reviewers and I see this as a strong manuscript that already makes an important empirical contribution. The requested changes are primarily to help readers understand the paper on its own terms and to ensure that the claims are framed as precisely as the evidence allows.

I would therefore encourage you to revise the manuscript with these points in mind. I believe that a careful revision along these lines would substantially strengthen what is already a very promising paper.

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1:  Review of “Ad-Based Social Media Interventions Increase Belief Accuracy and Generate Pro-Social Opinions Among Non-News Readers”

Summary

This manuscript reports a large set of field quasi-experiments testing whether short, factual Instagram advertisements can improve belief accuracy, attitudes, and behavioural intentions among news non-users. Using Meta’s advertising infrastructure, the authors demonstrate consistent positive effects on factual endorsement and some attitudinal outcomes across multiple issue domains (climate change, COVID-19 vaccines, election integrity, and media literacy), with no evidence of backfire and some evidence of persistence over time.

The study is ambitious in scale, carefully executed within the constraints of platform-based field experimentation, and transparent about its limitations. The work is well suited to PLOS One’s focus on methodological soundness and contribution through empirical validation. The main issues raised below concern framing, interpretation, and positioning of the contribution rather than the analyses themselves.

Major Comments

1. Clarify the paper’s contribution as reframing rather than persuasion

The manuscript would benefit from more explicitly stating that its primary contribution is not demonstrating that advertising can persuade, an established finding, but rather reframing the broader problem often discussed under the banner of “misinformation” as one of informational absence among news non-users, and empirically showing that this reframing leads to scalable, non-backfiring intervention strategies using existing platform infrastructure.

At present, some parts of the manuscript risk being read as advancing a general claim about persuasive effectiveness of online videos, which invites evaluation criteria (e.g., depth of belief change, behavioural outcomes) that go beyond what the study is designed to address. Clearer signposting of the reframing as the central contribution would better align reader expectations with the paper’s actual strengths.

For example, the authors might consider language along the lines of:

“Rather than testing whether online advertising can persuade, a well-established result, this study demonstrates that reframing the problem as one of informational absence among news non-users yields viable, scalable interventions that improve factual endorsement and attitudes in real-world settings.”

2. Situate the reframing more explicitly within existing literature

Related to the above, the manuscript draws on several existing literatures that have already pointed toward aspects of this reframing, including work on news avoidance and non-use, the informational consequences of limited exposure to verified news, and the unintended effects of debunking- or skepticism-focused interventions. Much of this work is cited, but it is largely treated as background motivation rather than as part of a coherent intellectual lineage.

Making this lineage more explicit, by clarifying how the proposed reframing builds on and extends prior arguments about informational absence, would strengthen the contribution and avoid the impression that the reframing is entirely novel. Doing so would also highlight more clearly what is distinctive here: the empirical operationalisation of this reframing at scale using platform advertising tools.

3. Consider implications of competitive or adversarial advertising environments

A key implication of the proposed reframing is that it relies on market-based advertising infrastructure, which is equally accessible to actors with competing or opposing agendas. While the authors briefly acknowledge that such interventions could be weaponized, the manuscript does not fully engage with what this means for real-world deployment.

The present studies demonstrate effectiveness in largely non-confrontational informational contexts, where competing messages are not systematically introduced. Explicitly acknowledging this boundary condition, and briefly discussing how effectiveness might change in competitive or adversarial advertising environments (i.e. its effectiveness is likely to be dramatically reduced), would strengthen the manuscript’s policy relevance and conceptual completeness, without requiring additional analyses.

4. Interpret “belief accuracy” with greater precision

Belief accuracy is operationalized through factual endorsement items administered shortly after exposure. While this is reasonable and clearly reported, the manuscript would benefit from more explicitly acknowledging that such measures may reflect short-term information uptake, accessibility or demand characteristics rather than deeper or more durable belief change.

Clarifying this distinction would help prevent overinterpretation and better align the discussion with what the measures can support, particularly given the paper’s emphasis on belief accuracy as a key outcome.

5. Clarify distinctions between beliefs, attitudes, and behavioural intentions

The manuscript distinguishes between beliefs (factual accuracy), attitudes (evaluative judgments), and behavioural intentions, but these distinctions remain largely implicit. Some belief items are politically or normatively loaded, and attitudes are measured using similarly brief binary items, which can blur conceptual boundaries.

Similarly, while the authors generally distinguish behavioural intentions from behaviour, some discussion sections gesture toward downstream behavioural implications more strongly than the evidence allows. Tightening language throughout to maintain these distinctions consistently would improve conceptual clarity and interpretive precision.

Minor Comments

1. The limitations section is generally strong; integrating brief acknowledgements of the points above (belief accuracy interpretation and competitive messaging environments) would improve coherence.

2. The discussion of persistence effects is appropriately cautious; it may be useful to reiterate clearly that longer-term effects are demonstrated for climate change outcomes specifically.

3. Consider briefly noting that effects may differ for populations with stronger priors or higher issue engagement, to further contextualize generalizability.

Reviewer #2:  In this paper, the authors presented an internal meta-analysis of 48 social media field experiments designed to promote belief accuracy and change attitudes that may be downstream of misinformation. The authors find that most of their experiments work in increasing belief accuracy and changing public opinion among their samples (people disproportionately unlikely to consume political/news media). Positive effects seem to exist regardless of the intervention type, and the effects of these interventions are highly durable.

I am largely satisfied with the paper as it is. It details an impressive array of experiments. It provides a useful and citable set of evidence that not only are the positive findings for many misinformation interventions credible, but scalable. I really only have one suggestion for the manuscript, which is generally highlighting what the contribution of the interventions are in the front end. In a first read, it sounded like an alternative intervention was being proposed, but in reality, it sounds like the gap this research fills is a) how to scale up that interventions and b) to see if, upon scaling it up, the interventions work in the field like they do in the lab/surveys. Front-loading this would be very useful for the manuscript's visibility. Otherwise, I think this paper is in excellent shape and doesn't really need further changes.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Piers Howe

Reviewer #2: No

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Ad-Based Social Media Interventions Increase Belief Accuracy and Generate Pro-Social Opinions Among Non-News Readers

PONE-D-25-67892R1

Dear Dr. WOJCIESZAK,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Carlos Carrasco-Farré

Academic Editor

PLOS One

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