What Motivates Audiences to Report Fake News?: Uncovering a Framework of Factors That Drive the Community Reporting of Fake News on Social Media

Abstract

The circulation of fake news on social media platforms has drawn increasing concern. At this point, the community reporting of fake news remains a key mechanism used by these platforms to identify information to block or label as misleading. Yet, little is known about the factors that motivate or dissuade the use of this mechanism and its perceived effectiveness to combat fake news. This study utilises focus groups of social media users aged 21 to 60, located within the global city of Singapore. Results showed that six factors influenced the decisions of audiences to report the news they perceived as fake, namely the nature of the post, nature of the source, reactions from and impact on others, subject interest and knowledge, cultural norms, and consequences of reporting; they also perceived low effectiveness of this mechanism to curb fake news spread. Findings reveal that not all perceived misinformation encountered by users will be reported, signalling issues with the community reporting of fake news mechanism, and that this function will only have optimal outcomes if supplemented by news literacy programmes that include “misinformation reporting” and managing its hurdles as a key component.