It Is All About Criticism: Understanding the Effect of Social Media Discourse on Legal Crowdfunding Campaigns

Legal crowdfunding is an emerging domain where lawyers and individuals raise funds to fight legal actions. To study how prospective donors can verify the credibility of legal campaigns, we analyzed the conversations surrounding these campaigns on Facebook. We discovered three primary themes associated with the perceptions of the contributors of legal campaigns: supporters posting admiring and appreciative comments, supporters posting critical and disapproving comments, and opponents posting critical and disapproving comments. We observed that while supporters criticized campaigns' opponents, biased media, and dishonest authorities, opponents criticized campaign owners, campaigns' objectives and opaque logistics. To understand the impact of these perspectives on donors, we followed up with an online survey study where we presented a legal campaign with its corresponding social media conversations. We found that critical comments impacted donation decisions more than appreciative comments. We concluded with design implications to better support potential donors to make more informed donation decisions.