Online Engagement with Retracted Articles: Who, When, and How?

TL;DR

This study examines how retracted scientific articles are discussed on Twitter, revealing increased attention from the public and bots before retraction and highlighting the role of social media in science communication and misinformation spread.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of Twitter engagement patterns with retracted articles, including user type distinctions and pre- and post-retraction differences, which was previously lacking.

Findings

Retracted articles receive more attention than non-retracted ones.

Public and bots are the most engaged user groups.

Most engagement occurs before retraction.

Abstract

Retracted research discussed on social media can spread misinformation. Yet we lack an understanding of how retracted articles are mentioned by academic and non-academic users. This is especially relevant on Twitter due to the platform's prominent role in science communication. Here, we analyze the pre- and post-retraction differences in Twitter attention and engagement metrics for over 3,800 retracted English-language articles alongside comparable non-retracted articles. We subset these findings according to five user types detected by our supervised learning classifier: members of the public, academics, bots, science practitioners, and science communicators. We find that retracted articles receive greater user attention (tweet count) and engagement (likes, retweets, and replies) than non-retracted articles, especially among members of the public and bots, with the majority of user engagement happening before retraction. Our results highlight the prominent role of non-experts in discussions of retracted research and suggest an opportunity for social media platforms to contribute towards early detection of problematic scientific research online.