Events

Professor Haitao (Tony) Cui
Ecolab – Pierson M. Grieve Endowed Chair in International Marketing
Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota

With the massive growth of social media and other informational platforms that businesses and individuals may use to share their opinions, a society’s perspectives of certain contentious issues may be influenced significantly. At the same time, it has been noted that various parties have used paid trolls (i.e., fake comments made by bot accounts) to sway public opinions concerning some hotly debated issues or legal proceedings. This article aims to investigate how public opinions and paid trolls may affect the outcome of legal disputes between opposing parties. Our research indicates that firms involved in lawsuits with social media engagement may purchase paid trolls to influence public opinions, and they do so more significantly when the truth does not match the prior expectation of the public. We also discover that social media users’ sophistication may be a pitfall for the involved parties, including the competing firms and the judge who is adjudicating the case. Additionally, the court may be either constrained or aided to identify the truth by having a tendency to render decisions that align with prevailing public opinions, depending on the stake of the lawsuit.

Keywords: bot accounts, court ruling, informational platforms, social media