Misunderstanding stance in tweets

How accurately do readers of tweets understand the stance that tweet authors intended to express? We solicited from 6 authors their intended stance in their May 2022 tweets about “Roe v. Wade” after the Supreme Court’s draft opinion to strike down Roe v. Wade was disclosed: in support, opposed, no opinion, or something else. We then asked 101 online participants the stance they thought the author intended to express about Roe v. Wade. Readers’ alignment with authors’ self-reported stance in each tweet ranged from as low as 31.7% to no higher than 89.1% of readers, and 25% of readers interpreted a stance opposite to the author’s intention at least once, despite authors’ high confidence that their tweets would be understood as intended. Younger and more liberal readers comprehended more accurately, but their Twitter use, gender, education, and knowledge of Roe v. Wade did not significantly predict alignment. In a follow-up study intended to rule out alternative explanations for these findings, 142 online participants also rated the stance they thought the author intended to express on the Dobbs’ decision, and a highly similar pattern emerged. These findings provide evidence that undetected conceptual misalignment may be an underappreciated factor in social media.