Abstract
How can online communication most effectively respond to misinformation posted on social media? Recent studies examining the content of corrective messages provide mixed results—several studies suggest that politer, hedged messages may increase engagement with corrections, while others favor direct messaging which does not shed doubt on the credibility of the corrective message. Furthermore, common debunking strategies often include keeping the message simple and clear, while others recommend including a detailed explanation of why the initial misinformation is incorrect. To shed more light on how correction style affects correction efficacy, we manipulated both correction strength (direct, hedged) and explanatory depth (simple explanation, detailed explanation) in response to participants from Lucid (<em>N</em> = 2,228) who indicated they would share a false story in a survey experiment. We found minimal evidence suggesting that correction strength or depth affects correction engagement, both in terms of likelihood of replying, and accepting or resisting corrective information. However, we do find that analytic thinking and actively open-minded thinking are associated with greater acceptance of information in response to corrective messages, regardless of correction style. Our results help elucidate the efficacy of user-generated corrections of misinformation on social media.
Highlights
An estimated 3,6 billion people use social media as of 2020, with this number expected to only increase in the decade (Clement, 2020)
We consistently found no main effect of correction strength or explanatory depth on reply likelihood or reply sentiment
We do not find evidence that hedging corrections of misinformation or providing increased explanatory depth in corrections of misinformation had a meaningful impact on engagement with corrective messages on social media
Summary
An estimated 3,6 billion people use social media as of 2020, with this number expected to only increase in the decade (Clement, 2020). The advent of social media as a means of news dissemination has led to widespread concern over the spread of misinformation and ‘fake news’ In the months leading up to the 2016 USA Presidential election, false news stories favoring Trump were shared about 30 million times on Facebook; those favoring. Misinformation and disinformation about Covid-19 has spread quickly on social media (Frenkel, Alba, & Zhong, 2020), potentially with fatal consequences. There is great interest in identifying approaches to combat misinformation
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